


a different paradise

by ThePackWantstheD



Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/M, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Season/Series 02, Season/Series 03, Texting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-08-30
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2019-07-04 18:45:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 25,046
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15847167
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePackWantstheD/pseuds/ThePackWantstheD
Summary: "Of course I do," Meredith said. "I'm President of the Dirty Mistress Club too. And as President, my job is to take care of the members when the people they were seeing decide they'd rather have their husband than their mistress."Mark stared at her for a moment before a smile settled on his lips, something a little sad. "You, Meredith Grey, are far too good to have been a dirty mistress."





	1. Yesterday - The Name of the Game

**Author's Note:**

> So this fic was up a few months ago and then I deleted it in a panic bc I was suddenly unsure of it? But now it's back and I PROMISE that I'm not going to delete it again, mostly bc now I know what I feel like if I delete this fic.

"Why are you still here?" Meredith looked away from group of drunk college kids playing darts, having been wondering what the chances were of one of them injuring themselves, and over at Mark. For the past half hour, he'd been slumped forward with his head buried in his arms. Now his face was turned towards Meredith, cheek pressed against his forearm and his face flushed from all of the alcohol they'd had. "Don't you want to sleep or something? Interns never get enough sleep."

"Because I was you," Meredith told him. He made a soft sound, intrigued. Meredith took a deep breath before saying, "I told Derek to choose and that if he chose me, I would be here waiting for him."

"He didn't come."

"I don't know," Meredith said. "We got called into the hospital for an emergency."

"But he wasn't here when the call came?"

"But he wasn't here when the call came," Meredith confirmed.

Mark was quiet for a moment. Then he said, "Addison isn't coming either, is she?" Meredith hadn't known Mark for more than a day, but she could already tell that the low and unhappy tone in Mark's voice wasn't very characteristic.

"No. I don't think she is," Meredith said. She reached out, settling her hand on Mark's shoulder blade. "But I didn't get to wait as long as I wanted to wait, so I'll sit here with you as long as you want to wait."

"You don't have to," he said.

"Of course I do," Meredith said. "I'm President of the Dirty Mistress Club too. And as President, my job is to take care of the members when the people they were seeing decide they'd rather have their husband than their mistress."

Mark stared at her for a moment before a smile settled on his lips, something a little sad. "You, Meredith Grey, are far too good to have been a dirty mistress."

"Well, it doesn't feel like too many other people share that opinion."

"Who cares what other people think?" he asked. "I'm Mark Sloan. I'm always right."

Deciding that arguing with someone as drunk as Mark was wouldn't prove anything, Meredith just hummed before asking, "You want another drink?"

"God yes," Mark said, turning his face back into his arm. "I'm done with Scotch. Get me some tequila."

"Tequila it is then."

* * *

**Addison's Dirty Mistress**

  
Since I'm a guy  
can i still be called a dirty mistress? or am I a dirty master?

Why are you texting me?"

You gave me your number.  
Was I not supposed to take that as an invitation?

I'm not really sure why I gave you my number.  
But it definitely wasn't any kind of invitation.

Not even an invitation to be dirty mistress friends?

Didn't you text me to argue that you AREN'T a dirty mistress?  
Therefore negating said friendship?

Shit. You're right.

 

  
**Addison's Dirty Mistress**

  
Is that dirty mistress friends offer still on the table?

Well, I'm not going to tell a pretty lady to stay of my life,  
so I suppose.  
But why?

I did a very bad thing, so my options are friendship with you or friendship with  
Derek

I'm better than friendship with Derek?

I agreed to friendship with Derek, but considering I'm the dirty mistress  
I don't think this friendship is going to last very long.  
And since I don't know how long my other friends are going to be upset with me  
I might as well accept your offer as well.

Jesus  
What'd you do to make them hate you so badly that you  
don't know when they'll stop?

I slept with someone that I really shouldn't have slept with.

Very dirty mistress of you.

He's not married.

What's worse than sleeping with a married man?

Sleeping with a friend that's been in love with you for ages.

Ah.  
Yes. I'd say that's probably worse than being a dirty mistress.

 

 

  
**Addison's Dirty Mistress**

  
Do you believe in death clusters?

Why? Seattle Grace has a death cluster?

Maybe.

Ouch. Three or seven?

Seven. We've lost four already.

Three to go then.

That's not helping.

I'm a surgeon.  
Helpful is my middle name.

  
  
I'm pretty sure with you 'arrogant' is more likely.

Well, that too I suppose.

Mark Helpful Arrogant Sloan?

Absolutely.  
Good luck today. I hope your patient doesn't  
end up as one of the remaining three.

Me too. 

* * *

"We're friends now right?" Meredith said, speaking in a rush before Mark could get so much as hello in.

"Hello lusty intern," Mark said, sounding amused. Meredith wasn't sure where he was, but she could hear noise in the background that made her think he was probably in a hospital. She knew that Mark had a private practice. She wondered if he was at a hospital to perform a surgery and what it was. "And yes. I do believe that's what the constant text messaging means."

Meredith was quiet for a moment, thinking.

She wasn't entirely certain why she had called Mark.

The two of them were texting a lot, mostly about surgeon stuff but occasionally about the few hobbies they had outside of surgery, but it wasn't as though they were having a lot of deeply personal discussions. Maybe it was because Mark was so far away, because it felt safe to unload on Mark and know that he wouldn't tell anyone about the vulnerable squishy parts of her. Maybe it was just because there was something about Mark that drew people in, something underneath the arrogance and womanizing that was genuine and open. Maybe it was because she knew that that facade existed, knew that he had to be just as messed up as her to cling to it so tightly.

"Do you remember what I told you at the bar? About my father?" Meredith said.

"You saw him for the first time in a few decades, right?"

"Yes and now he's here," Meredith said. "With his wife and a daughter that I didn't even know he had!"

Mark was quiet for a moment before Meredith heard him let out a low whistle. "Wow. That's...."

"Insane! That's insane!" Meredith hissed. "I don't know how to deal with this! I can handle absent mothers. I grew up with an absent mother! I can't handle fathers showing up out of nowhere with their second family."

"I don't exactly know how to deal with that either," Mark said. There was some shuffling on the other end of the line before he said, "But I've got some time right now if you want to talk about it and see if the two of us together can figure out how to deal with absentee fathers and their second families."

Meredith thought about how she couldn't tell her other friends about this - how George wasn't talking to her, how Izzie would be too sympathetic, how Cristina and Alex would be too unsympathetic.

"Yes," Meredith said, relief flooding her chest. "God yes, please."

"Alright," Mark said. "Let's do this then."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) This is a hellsa old, hellsa rare ship but god damn it if I'm not going to cling to it with every fiber of my being.
> 
> 2) Imma be honest, I'm not entirely certain how long this is going to go on or how far into the series we're gonna go. But I am excited to write something for this ship, even if we're not ten seasons past this and I don't know how many people even read Grey's fic.


	2. Blues for Sister Someone - Losing my Religion

"Hello," Mark said. "How's the knitting going?"

"The knitting is good," Meredith said. She was lying in her bed with one arm thrown over her eyes while the other held her phone to her ear. "It's going perfectly fine."

Calling Mark to talk about the things going on in her life had become part of her daily routine. Sometimes she talked to him at the beginning of the day, like today, but other times she called him at lunch or when she was on her way home after a long day at the hospital. She spent a fair amount of time texting him when she was at the hospital, sending messages off during her rare free moments.

Cristina had been her person since practically the moment they'd met. She hadn't been expecting that she'd bond with Mark as quickly, that her 'person' would become her 'people.' But Mark had become important to her, someone who maybe wasn't as twisted as she was but also wasn't perfect as untwisted as everyone else in her life was. Mark understood in a way that Meredith hadn't been expecting when they first started talking.

Given the commonalities between them, though, she supposed she probably should have expected it.

"Ooh, that does not sound like the knitting is fine," Mark said, interest clear in his tone. She hadn't spent that much time in Mark's physical presence, but she felt like she knew what kind of person he was and she could imagine what he looked like right now. Whatever room he was in was quiet, so Meredith assumed it was his office in his practice. He was probably leaning forward now, elbows on the desk as he listened to her. "What happened? Are you going back to being a dirty mistress?"

"It's got nothing to do with Derek," Meredith dismissed. "But I went to the vets office to see Doc this morning and his vet asked me on a date."

"A vet?" Mark said, voice filled with distaste. "You're going to go on a date with a vet? He's not even a real doctor. You might as well be going on with a Dentist."

"I'm not going on a date with him," Meredith said. "I'm knitting."

"You wouldn't be telling me that he asked you out if you weren't at least thinking about saying yes."

Meredith was quiet for a moment before groaning. "He's so attractive."

Mark started laughing. He teased, "Is he dreamy?"

"Yes," Meredith said. When Mark's laughter grew louder, Meredith groaned again. "Oh shut up."

Mark, predictably, did not listen. 

* * *

**Addison's Dirty Mistress**

  
I can not believe you hung up on me

I told you to stop laughing at me.  
You didn't. So you got hung up on.

There is no possible way I could've done anything other than laugh  
when confronted with the idea of you dating a dreamy vet.

I am not going to date the dreamy vet.

You're thinking about dating the dreamy vet.   
And given your recent romantic decisions,   
I'm forced to believe that you will in fact be  
dating, and sleeping with, the dreamy vet soon.

I'M KNITTING.

 

**8:56PM**

  
I'm going to see the dreamy vet after my shift.

Told you so.

* * *

"Derek Shepherd is an absolute asshole."

"I slept with his wife, so I don't think I get to make comments about Derek Shepherd anymore," Mark said.

"Derek Shepherd is an absolute asshole," Meredith repeated. "He called me a whore."

There was a beat before Mark spoke again, fury in his voice, "He called you a what?"

"A whore," Meredith said. Derek's words had shattered something in her, but hearing Mark's reaction soothed the bleeding wounds a bit. He didn't think she deserved this and that made it slightly better. "He brought Doc to Finn's while I was there this morning. Then he was an asshole to me at work and when I confronted him about it he called me a whore and asked if I was going to sleep with Alex next."

"You are not a whore," Mark said.

"I know that. I told him that." She paused, before correcting, "Well, actually, I told him that he didn't get to call me a whore."

" _No one_  gets to call you a whore," Mark said. "You are a fully grown, single woman. You get to have casual, unattached sex. That's a choice you get to make. You are not a whore for that."

"I slept with Derek and he was married."

"You didn't know that Derek was married," Mark responded. "Derek, on the other hand, absolutely knew that he had a wife."

Something that Meredith thought might have been amusement if she hadn't felt so broken swelled in Meredith's chest. "Are you trying to say that Derek is a whore?"

"I'm not trying to say it. I will say it," Mark said. "If anyone in your relationship is a whore, it's Derek. Not you."

Meredith let out a soft sound, a breathy laugh. "Okay."

There was a small moment of silence before Mark spoke again. "Meredith, seriously. You are not a whore, okay?"

"Okay," Meredith agreed. She took a deep breath before pushing it out, trying to figure out how to arrange all the broken pieces inside of her into something comfortable again. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me," Mark said. "You don't have to thank people for telling you the truth."

"Thank you," Meredith said, making sure to stress the words. She wanted Mark to know how important what he was saying to her was.

"I'm not saying your welcome," Mark said. "It's not happening."

"Okay," Meredith said.

"Okay, I can't do anything when I'm this pissed off. Tell me about the case you had today. You didn't send me a million texts about crazy patients today."

"The case I had today involves a lot of Derek being angry with me for dating Finn," Meredith pointed out. "I was too busy dealing with that to text you."

"Skip those parts. Just tell me the medical stuff."

"Okay," Meredith agreed. "So we had a car accident come in today. There were three cars - two of which were members of a family while the third was an intern from Mercy West..." 

* * *

**Addison's Dirty Mistress**

Doc has bone cancer.  
And Derek is being an asshole.  
He thinks we should put Doc down.

I'm sorry, Mer.  
About Doc mostly, but also about Derek being a dick.

Derek being a dick isn't your fault.

Yeah, but I slept with his wife and that led to this entire thing.  
He wouldn't be in Seattle sharing a dog with you if I hadn't.

Well, I slept with him. You didn't have anything to do with that choice.  
And also, you don't have to be sorry about Doc.   
I'm looking for a different fix.

Are you sure?  
Not to side with Derek, especially given that I  
don't know everything, but sometimes putting an animal  
down is the better option.

Maybe, but I'm not making that decision until I know that.   
Derek just decided that was the best option without knowing anything.

Okay.   
Let me know what you decide?

I will.   
Thank you.

I'll be here for you. 

 

 

  
**Addison's Dirty Mistress**

  
I talked to Callie and Finn.  
I'm going to talk to Derek too, but I've decided to put Doc down.

Oh sweetheart.

This sucks. This really, really sucks.

I know and I'm so sorry.

I'm at Finns but do you mind if I just like....  
lock myself in his bathroom and call you?"

No. Go ahead.

* * *

"Hello," Mark greeted when he answered the phone. "Why'd George page you back to the hospital?"

Meredith knew exactly how wrecked she sounded when she said, "I can't tell you."

Mark was quiet for a moment before he said, "Meredith, what happened? Are you okay?"

"I can't tell you," Meredith repeated. "I really, really can't tell you. But can you just....talk to me? Can you tell me what you did today? Because I really just need a reason to think about anything other than what I did today."

There was a beat before Mark said, "Okay. I can do that if that's what you need."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yello. There are at least some people reading this, so I shall continue by self-indulgent Greys rewrite.


	3. Time Has Come Today - I Am a Tree

**Addison's Dirty Mistress**

This prom was a horrible idea and everything is fucked  
And I have no idea what is going on in my life any more.

What happened?

You wouldn't believe me if I told you

Yeah, that's a trend in your life.   
Doesn't mean you can't tell me.

I don't think I'm ready to talk about it.

Okay.  
I'm here whenever you are.   
  


  
  
I think I'm ready to tell you now.

Alright.  
What happened at the prom, Meredith?

* * *

"I want my twenty bucks back!" Cristina shouted as Tyler walked away from her.

"It's not Tyler's fault your a dirty, dirty stripper," Meredith said, glancing away from her charts long enough to smile at Cristina.  
  
She sighed, twisting around so she could settle in next to Meredith. "You heard?"

"Oh everyone heard," Meredith said. "Stripper."

"Oh, oh, you're one to talk," Cristina said. She paused before adding, "Sleeping with three men?"

"Wrong," Meredith said. She was about to continue when she noticed that Cristina had said. "Wait, three men? What are you talking about?"

"Finn, Derek, Mark," Cristina listed. She twirled her pencil in the air. "Three men."

"I'm not sleeping with any of them," Meredith said, frowning at her friend. Cristina was her first person. Meredith told Cristina everything. And while she'd gotten into the habit of telling Mark as well, it was Cristina that she always told first. It was distressing to think that Cristina thought she was sleeping with her Mark, because her person should know her well enough to know that she wasn't. "And I am definitely not sleeping with Mark."

"You would be if he were in Seattle though," Cristina said.

"I wouldn't!"

"Mere," Cristina said. She set her pencil down, turning to face Meredith fully. "You are more emotionally available with Mark than you are anyone else in your life."

"I'm emotionally available with you," Meredith argued.

"And we would be fucking if either of us had a cock," Cristina said. "But given that we are both cock hungry, tequila whores...." She made a gesture that Meredith knew meant 'Mark' even without her finishing it.

Meredith found herself struggling to come up with a defense, because Cristina wasn't right but when she put it like that Meredith found it hard to say that Cristina was wrong.

Meredith decided to ignore the entire conversation and return to their original discussion without Cristina's misguided beliefs about her and Mark's relationship. "I'm not sleeping with _Finn or Derek_  until I pick one. If I haven't made decision by the end of the day, I'm flipping a coin. A girl can only hold out for so long."

"And somehow I'm the dirty stripper?" Cristina said, humphing at the end of her sentence.

"You two have time to round," a voice interjected. Meredith looked up from her charts to find Bailey walking past them, making her way to grab a file. "Or are you too busy getting naked on hospital property?"

"No, I wasn't naked!" Cristina exclaimed. She shot Meredith a panicked look as the two of them followed after Bailey. "I wasn't naked!"

* * *

**Addison's Dirty Mistress**

Someone pinned my panties to the bulletin board

Well, at least you finally found them.

THIS IS NOT A GOOD THING MARK.

Are you sure?  
Because I've bought lingerie for women before.  
I know how expensive sexy black panties are.

I don't remember telling you what type of panties I lost.

Meredith, you sent me a picture of the dress.  
Girls like you don't wear dresses like that  
with anything other than sexy black panties.  
Am I wrong?

No  
but you've completely missed the point of this conversation   
so I am going back to work.

Alright.  
Let me know if there are any more  
panty updates?

* * *

"Hello," Meredith greeted, lifting her phone to her ear as she made her way down the sidewalk. She was headed back to the hospital after her Izzie check-up.

"Meredith! You answered!"

"Yes," Meredith said, lips stretching wide in a smile. She still felt off-balance from her encounter with Finn at the house, but now she was finding it hard not to smile when Mark sounded so genuinely happy to hear her.

"You aren't at the hospital?"

"No, I'm walking down the sidewalk," Meredith said. "I went to check on Izzie and now I'm heading back to work."

"Today was your Izzie day?" Meredith hummed in agreement. "Okay, tell me about your Izzie run and if anything else has happened between Cristina and Burke's mom." Meredith opened her mouth to speak, but before she could Mark added, "And tell me anything happening with George and Alex too. Your friends are much more interesting than my practice."

Meredith laughed. "Okay, okay."

As she started talking about the exorbitant amount of baking Izzie had done since the last time they spoke, Meredith found herself thinking about Cristina thinking Mark was one of her options.

Derek had little interest in her friends outside of their roles at the hospital.

Finn was the kind of guy who brought lunch to her roommate when she was sad.

Mark was the kind of guy who asked her about her friends, who laughed at the stories she told about them, and who didn't judge her for any of the things they did. 

* * *

Meredith sat at the bar, staring at the coin she had just flipped and thinking about what Cristina had told her.

She thought about Finn and Derek.

She thought about Cristina thinking Mark was one of her choices.

Cristina was right when she said that the coin couldn't make the choice for Meredith, but the coin had made the choice easier for Meredith. There was no third side to a coin. She couldn't decide that she wanted a different man than the two in front of her, because there were only two sides to the coin.

Meredith took a breath, reaching forward and slipping the coin off of the table and into her pocket.

The third choice wasn't an option, not even now that she'd decided not to let the coin made the decision.

So she chose something else instead - considering the options she actually had. 

* * *

**Addison's Dirty Mistress**

  
Hey, I'm in Seattle.   
You got time for a cup of coffee before you head to work?

You're in Seattle?   
What for? And why didn't you tell me?

I'm telling you now and the why is kinda a in person conversation.

Okay...?  
Well, I don't have time for coffee before work  
but you could drop by if you have time and we   
can have coffee there.

That is an excellent idea   
I'll be there soon.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Thank you for your support so far and welcome to season three!


	4. Sometimes a Fantasy - What I Am

Meredith was leaning against the administration desk, working on the discharge forms that Bailey had asked her to finish for her, when a body dropped down onto the desk next to her, elbow resting on the counter and body turned towards her.

Mark leaned in close as he said, "Did you know Izzie is standing outside in front of the hospital?"

Meredith looked over at him. "Still?"

"Still?" Mark echoed. "How long as she been out there?"

"Since we came in this morning," Meredith said. "She's supposed to be coming in to see the chief, but she hasn't moved an inch since then."

"Well, you wouldn't tell me why she quit, but given that she _did_  I'm going to assume it was something big?" Meredith hummed, noncommittally. "Given that something big happened, maybe you should give her some time? It's possible she's just not ready to come in yet."

"Maybe." Meredith took a deep breath before turning to look at Mark properly. "I just want her to be okay, you know? Everything that happened was a pretty big deal and I just...I want her to be okay again."

"Izzie's strong. And she's got all of you for when she's feeling weak. She'll be okay, even if she's still struggling right now."

Meredith was quiet, letting Mark's words sink in.

Then she took a deep breath and smiled at him. "Izzie aside, hello. It's nice to see you."

It was too.

While the two of them had only been in the same state for a few days, they had been messaging each other constantly for the past several months. She confided in him in ways that she couldn't confide in anyone other than Cristina. They were her people, Mark and Cristina, and they meant more to Meredith than anyone else in the world. They were the people who let her unleash all her crazy on them without flinching, who accepted and loved her as she was without forcing her to make any changes.

Having him here with her was a new experience, but it was one that she didn't have so much as an iota of nervousness about.

Whether he was in Seattle or New York, Mark was one of Meredith's most important people.

A smile spread across Mark's lips, wide enough to see his teeth but still genuine in its happiness despite the cheesy look of it all. "Hi Meredith. It's good to see you too." He glanced around the room before asking, "You have time for that coffee?"

"You know, Derek brought me a coffee this morning," Meredith said.

"Ooh?"

"And Finn brought me breakfast," Meredith added.

"Sounds like you're enjoying the dating life," Mark said.

"I am."

Mark hummed a bit before asking, "Is juggling two men so much work that you don't want to get coffee with me anymore? Because I really did have something to tell you."

"I'll still get coffee with you. I just wanted to tell you about the dating."

She looked away from Mark and down at the papers in front of her. Finishing her signature with a dramatic, Meredith slipped the discharge papers she had been working on into the patients file and then snapped it shut.

"Ready?" Mark held his arm out for her, waiting for Meredith to take it.

"Ready." She pushed herself away from the counter and looped her arm through his. As they started walking, she said, "So, what's with the impromptu trip to Seattle?"

"Well, you see...."

* * *

Cristina approached Meredith, asking, "Did I see you with Mark earlier? I didn't know he was in Seattle."

"Yeah, he's already left the hospital though," Meredith told her. "He's here for Addison. He just came by so we could drink coffee while gossiping about his life."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I mean it's kinda a long story, but yeah."

Cristina hummed a little bit. "Well, okay then."

With Mark having left Seattle Grace, Meredith had returned to working on the discharge papers Bailey had asked her to finish.

She looked away from the boxes she had been filling in, looking over at Cristina and asking, "Why do you sound so surprised? Why else would he be here?"

"I thought you and Mark were heading somewhere," Cristina said. She leaned herself against the desk, close enough that their thighs were pressed together, body turned towards Meredith.

It reminded Meredith of her conversation with Mark earlier, which then made Meredith think about what Cristina had said the first time she'd brought up the possibility of Meredith and Mark being in a romantic relationship. Cristina had said that Mark was the male version of her - not in personality, but in what Meredith gave them and what they meant to her. Meredith put the kind of trust and effort and faith into her relationship with Cristina that most people put into romantic relationship.

Now Meredith was giving all of that to Mark as well.

No matter what implications that held, though, Meredith had already decided that Mark wasn't an option. Even if Meredith changed _her_  mind about that, Mark was here for Addison.

Even if Meredith decided she wanted him, Mark didn't want her.

"Mark and I aren't headed anywhere other than where we already are," Meredith said.

* * *

**Addison's Dirty Mistress**

  
So I take it your conversation with Addison didn't go the way you wanted?

No, but I'm working on it.

How'd you figure that out?

I don't think I should tell you that.

Okay?

How did your date go?

The date was okay. The ending wasn't great.

Boys are stupid.

  
As a boy, I agree.

Since neither of our nights went as planned,

you wanna hang out?

Sure.

Bring me wine, chocolate, and a cheesy DVD. 

Sounds like a plan.

I'll be there within the hour.

* * *

**Addison's Dirty Mistress**

  
You know how I bumped into your boss when

checking into my hotel the other day?

Yes. And I still have a lot of questions about

that which you still haven't answered.

Well now I'm answering one of them:

he offered me a job.

Now I have even more questions and still no answers.

I'm going into the hospital today to sign the papers.

Pick you up? We'll grab some coffee and I'll drive you in.

Only if you're going to buy me expensive coffee. 

I can do that. I know how to treat a lady.

You know, I didn't tell you that so you could mock me.

I'm not mocking you.

If Derek and your vet aren't treating you like a lady,

then I have no problem stepping in until they do.

* * *

Mark looked at Meredith over the top of his sunglasses.

"You look like shit," he said.

"Oh wow, thanks Mark," Meredith said. "I had no idea."

"Hey now, don't snap at me," Mark said. As she shifted to pull her seat-belt on, Mark turned his attention back towards the road and shifted the car into drive. "I didn't do anything."

"Pointing out that I look terrible isn't doing anything?"

Mark shrugged. As they pulled away from the curb, he asked, "Are you sure you want to go into work today? It's pretty obvious you aren't feeling great."

"I'm sure," Meredith said. She shifted, slouching and trying to get comfortable in the seat despite the rolling in her stomach. "I have some medicine in my bag. I'll take it when I get to work and be feeling better by the time we do rounds." He hummed a bit, noncommittally. "Don't do that. It's true. I'm feeling bad right now, but I'm fine. I'll be better in no time."

"Okay. I'm sure you know what's going on better than I do," he agreed. "But why don't you indulge me and let me get us tea instead of coffee? It'll be easier on your stomach. Might even settle it a little bit." When Meredith didn't answer, he offered, "I'll buy you coffee for the rest of the week if you indulge me this once."

Meredith was quiet for another moment before conceding, partly because free coffee sounded great and partly because her stomach was rolling too badly for her to ignore that Mark had a point, "Fine. We can get tea instead."

Mark reached over, patting her thigh twice. She could feel how warm his palms were through his jeans. "Good. Thank you."

* * *

Meredith leaned against the reception desk with George and Cristina, trying to hear both Mark's conversation with Addison and Derek's conversation with the Chief.

She had encouraged Derek to confront Mark because there was no way they would survive working in the same hospital if he didn't confront him, no way _she_  could survive dating Derek and being Mark's friend if the two of them didn't work through their issues, but she could admit that she hadn't expected this much drama at once.

The drama was interesting, but her stomach was rolling again.

"Thought you left me for Derek," Mark said to Addison.

Derek and the Chief's voices had lowered, hisses and quiet whispers.

Meredith didn't have the energy to try and hear because a wave of nausea rolled of her.

She barely had time to pull her hair back and bend in front of the trash can, Cristina moving out of the way, before she found herself vomiting for the second time that day.

"Oh holy crap," Cristina blurted. "Are you pregnant?"

Meredith didn't have to look up to know that everyone in the room would be looking at her now.

As she bent over the trash can, she thought, _That's really going to help._

* * *

Meredith was lying in her hospital bed, brain feeling fuzzy and float-y, when she saw a flash of red passing her room.

"Addison!" she called out. When the woman didn't seem to have heard her, she said, louder, "Doctor Montgomery-Shepherd!"

Addison seemed to take a deep breath before turning towards her hospital room.

"You bellowed, Doctor Grey?" she said as she entered.

"Hi."

"You certainly are, aren't you?" Addison held her hand out for the nurse that had been checking Meredith's fluids, letting her place the chart in her hand. She glanced at it for a moment before saying, something strange in her voice that Meredith couldn't quite identity, "But you're not pregnant."

"No." Addison looked at her. There was a quiet moment of staring before she turned back to Meredith's chart. The moment had something welling in Meredith's chest, something that had her asking, "Are you okay?"

Addison slammed the chart shut and turned towards Meredith. "Fine." With a smile so fake that Meredith knew it was plastic, mocking, despite the drugs in her system and a gesture between them, she said, "How are you?"

"I'm trying to chose between three men." The second the words caught up to her, she corrected, "Two. I meant two men."

Mark, she remembered, was not a real option. Mark was something she wanted desperately, but couldn't have. Mark was not one of her choices.

"O-kay. Well," Addison said, making a face. She smiled, still fake but with something more painful in the edges. "Good luck with that."

Meredith watched her walk toward the door.

Before Addison crossed the threshold, she blurted out, "How did you know Derek was the one?"

Addison stopped, turned. ""Cuse me?"

"I know you hate me and you don't owe me anything...." Meredith found herself trailing off, becoming enraptured in her thoughts and the drawl of her own voice. "Nothing. Noooothing." She stopped as Addison resettled at the foot of her bed. Confused, she asked, "What was I saying?"

"Derek."

"Right." Meredith took a breath before saying, "I want him to be the one. But I would know if he was the one, right? I wouldn't be thinking that someone else might be the one, right? You knew, right?"

Addison seemed to sigh.

She shifted in place before saying, "You don't...I didn't...know. I just...Derek's the kind of guy...I just knew he wouldn't hurt me. Not on purpose anyway, not the way I hurt him."

There was a quiet moment before Meredith said, "He hurt me. When he chose you."

"Well I should have let him go," Addison said, heaving a sigh that was heavy enough to be noticeable this time. "I should have stepped aside. Been a better person. Should of...a lot of things."

"Me too. A lot of things," Meredith said, thinking of all the things she should have done differently. Addison looked like she was going to say something, like she gearing up to some revelation, but before she could get it out, Meredith said, "But you didn't, and I didn't, and Derek didn't. And now there's someone else that I love who I trust more then him, who I think won't hurt me the way he did. And now....And now I don't know if Derek is the one." Meredith sighed. "I want him to be the one, because Derek is an option. But I don't...I don't know anymore if he _is_  the one."

* * *

"Oh, oh, on the table keep me draped," Meredith told George, waving her hand around to catch his attention as he rolled her towards the OR. "Too many people have seen me naked already." Setting her hand down, she took a deep breath, asserting, "I'd like to keep whatever dignity I have left." She was glancing around when something walking down the hall caught her attention. "McSteamy!"

George leaned close, sounding exhausted as he huffed out, "Meredit-"

Before he could finish, she raised her voice, "McSteamy! Mark! Woo-hoo!"

He made his way towards her, smiling. "Is that what you're calling me now? McSteamy?"

"Yeeeah, but I don't think you're supposed to know that. It's a me and Cristina thing."

"I see." Mark glanced over at George before leaning in, resting his hand against her temple and soothing back some of the hair peeking out around her cap. His voice was gentle, but amused, as he asked, "How're you doing? I heard you were having an appie, but I didn't have time to check on you myself."

"I'm okay," Meredith said, closing her eyes to enjoy the feeling of warm calloused fingers moving against her skin. "It's okay that you didn't come to visit me. Derek and Finn came. And their my option, so it's good that they care enough to come visit when I"m sick."

Mark looked a little confused, but instead of pushing he let out a quiet, "They both came, huh? Dating must be going better than I thought then, yeah?"

"Mmm yeah." Thinking on who else had visited her, she said, "Cristina hung out with me for a bit. Oh! And I talked to Addison."

"You did?" he asked, sounding confused and caught off guard.

"Uh huh." With the hazy memory of her conversation with Addison fresh in her mind, she opened her eyes and looked at him properly. "I asked her how she knew that Derek was the one, why you couldn't be the one."

"You asked her that?" he said. "For me?"

"No, for me," Meredith corrected.

Mark's eyebrows furrowed, confused, but before he could ask her anything else George spoke up, "Sorry to interrupt, but I really have to get her to surgery."

"Okay." Mark's palm shifted, cupping her jaw instead of resting in her hair. Smile widening, he said, "See you later, okay? Come visit my favorite dirty mistress as long as she's not too busy with all her boyfriends."

"Oh! Haven't you heard?" Meredith said, feeling her own smile growing. Banter was more fun with Mark then anyone else, the way they could poke at each other and themselves and their shared pains. "I'm an adulterous whore now."

* * *

When Meredith woke up after surgery, Finn was by her bedside, holding her hand.

She was too sleepy and out of it to stop the pulse of disappointment that settled in her chest.

She wanted Mark.

When Derek came by later, once she had woken up enough for her heard to feel a little clearer, and told her that Finn was the better guy, she couldn't help the way that feeling swelled in her chest.

Because Finn and Derek were both the better guys, but she didn't _want_  either of them.

She wanted Mark.

* * *

 

 

 

 

"Addison," Mark said, leaning forward eagerly she neared him. "Can we talk?"

"I don't want you here, Mark," she said, speaking almost before he finished speaking. "I think I've made that abundantly clear. If you insist on staying, just know that we're coworkers. Nothing more." She took a deep breath, swallowing before turning away from him and calling for Alex.

Mark watched them for a moment before standing, turning away from Addison and walking down the hall.

He wasn't going to give up on her.

He still wanted her.

But right now, his chest hurt from her rejection and he needed someone else.

He needed Meredith.

He _wanted_  Meredith, wanted the comforting softness of her hand against the top of his and the gentle lithe of her voice and the warmth that filled his chest when she showed how much she cared about him.

Mark had been avoiding her room most of the day, tamping down his desire to check on her and make sure she was okay, so that he wouldn't bump into Derek when he was checking on her.

But Derek had gone home already. Finn had still been with her the last time Mark had gone by her hospital room, but visiting hours would end in thirty minutes and then he'd be gone as well.

Mark would do a quick check on his patients.

Then he'd use his new job title as an excuse to ignore hospital rules and spend a few hours with his favorite person in the entire world. Because he loved Addison, but there was lot of pain wrapped up in his relationship with Addison that his relationship with Meredith didn't cause him.

Meredith was good for him, good _to him_ , in ways that Addison wasn't.

And right now, Mark needed that. 

Right now, Mark needed Meredith. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed this chapter!  
> I'm super sorry that it's been so long, but I promise it won't be as long until the next one.


	5. Oh, the Guilt - Where the Boys Are

Meredith followed George into the kitchen, drawn by the smell of bacon and pancakes.

She wasn't surprised to find Izzie standing in front of a skillet.

She was slightly more surprised to find Mark sitting at the table, a cup of coffee by his hand and a full plate in front of him. He'd been spending a lot of time around the house since Meredith's surgery so it wasn't entirely strange for him to be there. But they had seen each other the night before last, settling on the couch together to watch the next episode of Sex Sent Me to the ER, and he hadn't mentioned any plans to drop in this morning.

"Morning!" Izzie chirped, catching sight of Meredith and George in the doorway.

Meredith smiled at Izzie, so disturbed by Izzie's cheeriness and obsessive cooking that she was certain it looked fake, while George said, speaking soft and slowly, "I thought we were done with the whole....muffin thing?"

"This isn't muffins. This is breakfast."

"It's a damn good one too," Mark put in as he grabbed a strip of bacon off his plate. "Stevens makes from mean pancakes."

George hummed in agreement, choosing to focus on making his way over to the coffee pot instead of answering.

Meredith looked over at Mark, "And what are you doing here?"

"My shift starts at the same time as yours, so I figured I'd come over and we could go in together." Making her way over to him, Meredith reached down and snagged some of the bacon off of his plate as well. Instead of getting angry with her, he just pushed the plate a little closer so she could reach it better. She shoved the bacon in her mouth before reaching down to grab a pancake as well, deciding to just tear it apart with her fingers. Mark didn't put syrup on his pancakes so eating by hand wasn't going to end up with her fingers sticky. "I brought the Audi instead of the SVU so you could arrive in style."

She wouldn't have turned down his offer to drive her in regardless, she enjoyed spending time with Mark and she knew that working agree would mean less nights in with him than they'd had during her recovery, but him bringing the Audi made it impossible for her to refuse. She liked Mark's Audi. It was fun to be in when the music was turned up too loud and the windows were rolled down, when Mark drove it too fast and the car was filled with both of them laughing as they whipped around curves.

"And," Izzie said, "I'm making you breakfast! You need a good solid breakfast for your first day back after the big surgery."

Meredith hummed a bit as she tore a piece off her stolen pancake. Focusing back on Izzie instead of Mark, she asked, "Are you okay?

"Of course I'm okay. I'm a millionaire." As she moved towards the table with a bowl of fruit in one hand and a plate stacked high with pancakes in the other, she asked, "What do you guys think about B&Bs? I'm thinking about opening a B&B in Vermont where the foliage is, you know?" She moved quickly away from the table again, making a beeline for the sink.

"Oh! A B&B in Vermont would be good," Mark said, already reaching forward to grab some of the berries out of the bowl Izzie had placed. Meredith had learned over the course of their friendship that despite his good figure, Mark was like a teenager when it came to the sheer amount of food he ate. Meredith didn't know much about his childhood behind knowing that his family was a non-existent entity in his life, but she wondered if his childhood was why he ate the way he did. If he had never gotten the chance to eat properly as a child so now he inhaled food whenever it was in front of him. "You could make a lot of money with a good location."

"Right?" Izzie exclaimed.

Meredith kicked her foot out lightly, snagging Mark in the middle of his calf. He made a soft 'oof' on the impact and looked up at her with betrayal in his eyes. She told him, "Not helping."

"Maybe," George said, turning away from the coffee pot now that he'd inhaled half of his first cup, "you should go back to bed."

"Can't! I'm going to the hospital."

"Are you gonna go talk to the chief?" Meredith asked.

"Nope, I'm going to clean out my locker." Spinning away from the sink, Izzie made her way back over to the island with a juicer in her hands. As she continued, she reached for the orange juice and started pouring some into a cup, "I could buy a hotel. How much do you think a hotel costs?"

When the juice spilled over the check on the counter, all three of the rooms other occupants jumped up.

"Izzie!" Meredith exclaimed as George darted for the sink and Mark moved forward with paper towels.

"That is eight million dollars!" George exclaimed, grabbing the dish cloth from the sink. As he and Mark tried to dry up the counter and the insurance check, he continued, "Eight million dollars does not like to have juice spilled on it!"

"You have to take that to the bank today," Meredith insisted as George grabbed the check, fanning it in the air around them. "It's making me nervous in the house."

"I will," Izzie assured. "As soon as I clean out my locker."

Meredith sighed, glancing across the kitchen to exchange a look with George.

Catching it, Izzie said, "I am fine. Really. I am fine." Mark let out a small, disbelieving snort. And Izzie was so far from being convincing that Meredith didn't even bother elbowing him for it. "Denny loved me. He wanted me to have this money. He wanted me to be happy. So I'm happy." There was a small beat before she reached for the pitcher again, offering, "Juice?"

* * *

"Meredith," Mark said, leaning into her space and draping himself over her. She was standing at the reception area, looking through charts. She didn't bother looking away from the sheets in front of her. Mark being in her personal space was something she paid much attention to now, not when they had spent the weeks after her appendectomy pressed close together on her couch. Having him this close was nice, but it was the sort of nice that had become normal recently. "I need to get out of this hospital for a few minutes. Come have lunch with me at the sandwich place across the street."

"I'm supposed to have lunch with the other interns. We're going to try talking to Izzie together."

"Ditch them. Come with me instead." He shifted a bit against her. Instead of having his chin resting on her shoulder, he pressed his cheek against it and pushed his face into her neck. As if he was hiding away from something. Meredith felt her smile dropping at the change in his demeanor, knowing it meant something had him in a bad mood. Mark was always a little clingy, but rarely did he express it this outwardly. "Please?"

She turned her head, ignoring the grumble Mark made when it left him exposed again, and looked at him.

His mouth was turned down in a frown and his eyes were sad instead of their usual sparkling blue.

"What's wrong?" she asked, concern bubbling in her.

"Addison."

"What did she do?"

Meredith might have been slowly falling in love with Mark, but that didn't mean that she wasn't still here to listen to him when he wanted to talk about the girl he loved. It hurt to hear him talk about Addison, but Meredith knew that Mark needed her support when it came to the situation. She wasn't going to let him down when he had never let her down.

"She hasn't told Derek that we were together," Mark said. "And now she has all of their property and I still don't have my best friend back." Meredith didn't know what to say to that, so she didn't say anything. Instead she hummed quietly and wrapped one of her arms around him the best she could given how they were standing. Mark was quiet for a moment, seeming content to just lay on Meredith, before murmuring, "So lunch? Spending some time with you will make me feel better. I might not have Derek, but I have you and you're my best friend too."

"Yeah," Meredith said, because no matter what else she felt for him it was true that Mark was one of her best friend. Mark, like Cristina, was one of her people. "I'll come get lunch with you."

* * *

Derek walked into the elevator.

Meredith watched him for a moment, took in the tight set of his shoulders and the thin press of his mouth.

And for a moment, she considered opening her mouth.

Everyone had been telling her all day that she had to tell Derek that she had broken up with Finn.

But the thing was...

The thing was that Derek was a good man. Maybe he had wronged her at times, but it had never been because he wasn't a good man. It had been because Addison had done something terrible to him, because he loved Meredith but he hadn't left Addison because he stopped loving her.

Derek was a good man.

He didn't deserve to be Meredith's second choice, the same way that Mark didn't deserve to be Addison's.

Meredith didn't open her mouth, choosing instead to just smile at Derek and then turn her eyes to the ground.

* * *

Meredith was sitting on the couch with Izzie and George, leaning against the arm of the chair while George tried to find something Izzie would like and which would make her feel a little better about the decisions she'd made today, when she heard the door opening.

There were only so many people who knew where the spare key was, so she wasn't surprised when she twisted around to find Mark coming in.

"Hey," she said, smiling as she looked at him. "I wasn't expecting to see you tonight."

"I had a bad night," Mark said shrugging a little bit. "I wanted to come see you."

Meredith watched him for a moment, wondering what had put him in a bad mood. She hadn't been on Mark's service recently, but she knew if there had been any interesting surgeries going on she would have heard. Mark hadn't been doing anything particularly dangerous and she didn't think she'd heard about any complications on any of what he had done, so she didn't think he'd lost a patient.

She wondered if he had had another conversation with Addison.

Or maybe with Derek given the bad mood the neurosurgeon had been in.

Either way, she figured it didn't matter.

All that mattered was that Mark was feeling low and he had come to her for comfort.

"Alright, come sit with us." She patted the arm of the couch before moving over enough that Mark would be able to squeeze in between her and the arm. As he walked towards her, a small relieved smile crossing his face, she told him, "We're looking for something to watch. Any suggestions?"

"I'm fine with anything," he said. He squeezed into the space she'd left him without complaint and when she tucked herself against him, he wrapped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her tight against him. "Doesn't even have to be good as long as it's funny."

* * *

Meredith was half listening to Cristina and Izzie's conversation about the boys camping trip when Mark approached them, asking, "You seen what's his face?"

"You know his name is Alex," Meredith said.

"Do I though?" Before Meredith could respond, Mark continued, "Poor bastard seems to get a thrill out of tagging along after me."

"He's camping."

"Well in that case, how would you like to get a thrill out of tagging along after me?"

A small laugh bubbled out of Meredith's throat. Smiling, she told him, "Doctor Bailey makes the assignments."  
  
"Doctor Bailey says it's fine," Bailey said, coming up to them. There was something unhappy in her stance, in the way she was speaking and the way she looked at them. Meredith recognized it enough to know that one of them had done something to upset her, but she wasn't sure what or who. She looked at Meredith for a moment before adding, "Go."

Meredith and Mark exchanged a look before doing as she said.

"What'd you do to her?" Mark asked as they hustled away.

"Me? Nothing." Despite her words, Meredith took a second to reflect on the past few days before nodding against. "Yeah. Nothing."

"Must've been Cristina or Izzie then."

Meredith hummed a bit, agreeing. Since she didn't know what they had done to upset Bailey, she figured there was no point in continuing to discuss it. Instead, she looked over at Mark and said, "So you're requesting me now?"

"Yup." He met her gaze, saying, "I figure it might be nice to work together at least a few times. And now seemed like a good time since Derek's out of the hospital."

"I'm not hiding that we're friends from him, you know?"

"Neither am I. But you actually like neurosurgery and I'd hate to put you on my rotation if he had a good case."

Meredith felt a smile settling on her face again. "You are so good to me."

"Damn right I am." He reached out, resting his hand on her lower back. He didn't push her, but the pressure was enough for her to pick up her pace a bit. "Now come on. I've got one of my favorite patients scheduled for a pretty cool surgery. We're gonna have tons of fun."

* * *

"So what happens with Donna now?"

"She goes back to being an unhappy man whose stuck with a penis. There are millions of us out there."

Amusement and disbelief mixed in Meredith's gut. She looked up from Donna's chart, raising one eyebrow as she met Mark's gaze. "You're unhappy with your penis?"

"I could be a lot less unhappy," Mark said. He leaned further against the desk, body language and tone suggestion. Meredith found herself smiling as she looked back down at the papers. She wanted Mark to be serious when he flirted with her, but she knew that wasn't going to happen so she was happy with just knowing that he was attracted to her and that they could be comfortable in that knowledge without ruining things between them. "Maybe it's for the best that he's taking some space. Maybe you two aren't meant to be together."

It took Meredith a moment to realize that he was talking about Derek. It had been ages since she and Derek had talked about anything other than medicine. Apparently Mark and Derek had been talking about Meredith, though.

"Look, Derek..." Mark shook his head slightly. "On the outside he holds it all together, but he's damaged goods, Mer. It's my fault. I damaged him. Maybe forever. Do you really want to drink from a poison well?" In another world, this would have been the end of the conversation. In another world, they weren't close enough for anything other than this. In this world, Mark reached out, pushing some of her hair back behind her ear as he mumbled, "You deserve better than that."

Meredith looked at him for a moment, eyes flickering across his features.

Then, cautious of the way her heart pounded in her chest, she said, "Is there another well somewhere?"

A quiet moment settled between them, something heavy and tense and filled with something Meredith couldn't quite put her finger on. It was like anticipation, but not quite.

It was like....

It was like standing on the edge of a cliff with absolutely no idea whether she was going to fall or stay where she was, knowing what could happen but not having the strength to move forward or backwards. It wasn't quite anticipation yet, but it was like knowing that something _could_ come that would lead her there.

Mark opened his mouth.

"Dr. Sloan!" They looked away from each other to see Vicky coming out of Donna's room. "You have to talk to her. Donna says she wants to go through the operation."

* * *

Meredith sat across from Mark in the booth, the dim bar lights above them warming her cheeks. Her elbows rested on the table, hangs close to Mark's near the center but not quite touching.

"I can't start something with you," Meredith said.

"You could," Mark said. "Start over, Meredith. Start fresh."

Meredith stared at him for long time before saying, "Mark, I won't be second to Addison again. And you are too important to me for me to throw this away for just sex."

"That's not what I want." He stretched his hand out, reaching for hers. Meredith let him take it, let him wrap his warm calloused fingers around her own. "And you aren't second to Addison, Meredith. You never have been. You never will be."

"You're in love with her."

"Yeah. And I think I always will a little bit," Mark said. "But you mean something to me too, Meredith. You mean a whole hell of a lot to me and I've been thinking recently about how much I need you in my life and how much I want you there. Because whenever anything happens nowadays I don't run to Derek because he's my best friend or to Addison because I love her. I run to _you_  because you're both of those things." He squeezed Meredith's fingers, voice dropping lower and his tone becoming more honest in his near whisper. "If you don't want this, if you want to keep being friends then I can handle that. You are far too important for me to throw away just because you don't want to be in a relationship with me. You've been here for some of the toughest months of my life and you've made them better. But I want to try this. I want to try _us._ "

Meredith opened her mouth, reaching for the words settled in her chest.

Before she could get them off, Mark's pager started beeping.

"Fuck," Mark swore. His expression was apologetic. He squeezed her hands again before pulling away, reaching to pull it off his belt and glance at it. He swore again when he looked at it. Glancing back up, he told her, "I have to go make a phone call. Order me another beer. I promise I'll be back to drink it."

"Alright," Meredith agreed.

Mark smiled down at her, obviously pleased that she wasn't going to bolt on him after his confession. "I'll be right back."

"Okay."

* * *

"Mer, please," Derek said, voice soft and pleading.

Out of the corner of her eye, Meredith saw the back door swing open and Mark come back into the bar.

He caught sight of her and Derek immediately. His entire expression dropped, but he didn't move to step outside, didn't make an assumption about what she was choosing.

She glanced between Mark and Derek, thinking about what Vicky had said when Meredith had been in Donna's hospital room earlier. She thought about Vicky saying that Donna was her best friend, that when things went right it was Donna who she wanted to tell and when things went wrong it was Donna who she wanted to tell. She thought about Vicky saying that no matter what happened, no matter how Donna hurt her or how she hurt Donna, it was Donna who she wanted to talk to.

Meredith wanted to talk to Mark.

"I'm sorry, Derek," Meredith said. Derek had been beginning to smile, obviously thinking Meredith was coming around to his speech, but now his expression darkened again. "It's just....It's not you anymore. And it hasn't been for a while."

Derek looked like he wanted to say something, but Mark was standing across the room with a look on his face that made Meredith's chest ache.

"I'm sorry," she repeated.

Then she walked away. She didn't look back, focusing instead on Mark and the mixture of awe, surprise, and joy beginning to blossom across his face.

"You waited for me," he said when she was close enough.

"I did," Meredith said. She reached out for his hand. Mark let out a sharp exhale as their fingers slotted together, something shaky and unexpected. Meredith wondered what he had been thinking as he watched her with Derek. She thought she could guess. "We aren't starting over, though. We're here with each other because of our pasts. I don't want a restart. I want what we have now."

"Okay," Mark agreed. He leaned in towards her, repeating, "Okay."

Meredith closed the gap between them, sealing their lips together in a soft kiss.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! I'd like to thank all of you for your support thus far. This is a pretty rare pairing and Mark hasn't been in the show for a while, so I wasn't expecting any response to this fic. I hope everyone enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> 2) Speculating on Mark's past in this chapter. I'd be interested in hearing opinions on that!
> 
> 3) It's weird to watch the episodes I'm rewriting and see Mark sleeping with people and then have him not sleep with them in my fic? Like it's strange to think of those relations. On that note if anyone is watching the show while reading this you can also ignore every Meredith and Derek interaction in 'Let the Angels Commit' and pretty much all of the interactions between them from here on out. Meredith's pulled back from him at this point. Though he'll definitely rear his head again. And also the moments in 'Where the Boys Are' when Meredith and Mark have all their awkwardness about Mark requesting Derek's dirty mistress. 
> 
> 4) I'm hoping the ending of this isn't a huge surprise to anyone? I'm worried Mark's feelings aren't clear since this story is so Meredith focused. I was hoping to get across how badly he needs and wants Meredith and maybe give hints as to where this chapter was going, but I'm not sure I did.


	6. Staring at the Sun - Don't Stand So Close to Me

Laughter exploded out of Meredith's mouth as her back hit the mattress.

"I'm not a rag doll, you know," Meredith said, still laughing as Mark crawled onto the bed with her. "You can't just toss me around like one."

"Don't lie," Mark said as he followed her onto the bed, putting his knees on the edge and crawling towards her. He crawled up the bed slowly, the grin on his lips amused and affectionate and wicked all at once. As he moved, he trapped her between his legs. "You think it's hot that I can toss you around." When he had moved enough that they were face to face, she reached up when he was settled, locking her wrists together and brushing her fingers through the short hairs on the back of his neck.

"I plead the fifth."

"Oh you're going to plead something alright."

Another burst of laughter left Meredith's lips. "That was so cheesy!"

"Yeah," Mark admitted. "But it's worth it if it makes you laugh."

Warmth settled in Meredith's chest, a bright sunburst of affection for the man hovering over her. She used the hands wrapped around his neck to pull him down closer to her, murmuring, "That was even cheesier."

"It's true though," Mark told her, voice quiet and words soft. Meredith had brought them so close together that their lips brushed as Mark spoke, a whisper of skin against each other. The moment felt different now. Instead of amusing and bright, it felt soft and honest, quiet and gentle. "I like making you laugh."

Before Meredith could come up with a response, Mark was leaning down to connect their lips.

Mark's kisses were always intense, but this one was missing some of it's edge. It was slower, sweeter, filled with affection and something soft instead of lust and eagerness.

A kiss like this was dangerous.

Meredith was used to being wanted, had slept with men who wanted her plenty of times before.

A kiss like this made her feel loved. 

* * *

Hearing the door slam against the wall and angry footsteps, Addison spun around.

"Whoa," she said when she saw it was Derek stomping around the hospital. Derek was generally pretty level-headed, so it was surprising to see him this worked up. There were very few things that got him this angry. "What happened to you?"

He had been glaring at the chart in his hand, but now he looked up at her.

Addison didn't quite shrink at the look in his eyes, but it had something in her gut churning. She didn't think Derek would hit her, but some of the words Derek had thrown at her since the affair had been less than kind. She deserved some of them. That didn't make any of them hurt less, though.

"Mark and Meredith are sleeping together."

It took Addison a moment to register what had been said. Then the only thing she could get out was, "What?"

"I went to Joe's yesterday to talk to Meredith, to tell her that I love her and want to be with her," Derek said. Addison had accepted that her marriage was over, but that didn't mean that she had stopped loving her husband and every word coming out of his mouth hit her like a stab to the heart. "And she left with Mark instead of with me." 

* * *

"Mark, what the hell are you doing," Addison hissed as she walked up to him. She was sick of airing her dirty laundry all over this hospital, but she didn't know where else they were supposed to do this.

He glanced up at her, looking a little confused. "My charts?"

"I don't mean your stupid charts," she said. "I mean with Meredith Grey!"

"Oh." He looked back at his charts as he added, "Meredith and I are dating."

"Mark!" she said, voice a little louder. She slammed her hand onto his charts so that he couldn't look at them. "You can not date Derek's lusty intern just because I told you I don't want-"

Mark looked away from the charts and up at her. Addison was surprised by the deep frown on his lips, the anger in his eyes. "My relationship with Meredith has absolutely nothing to do with you _or_  Derek." She opened her mouth to argue, to point out that all of this was a little too convenient to not have anything to do with her and Derek. Mark cut her off again before she could get the words out, " _Stop._  You don't get to talk to me about this. You and Derek decided that I was nothing more than the man-whore who ruined you're marriage. That means that neither of you are my friends anymore which means that you don't get to act like we are. You don't get to act like you know anything that's going on my life after deciding that you wanted nothing to do with me."

Addison found herself stunned in the aftermath of his words.

Before she could find her footing again, Karev and Stevens walked up to them. Stevens had a dry-cleaning bag hooked over her shoulders while Karev was holding a white lunch bag.

"Excuse me. I've got to go teach my interns now," Mark said, voice cold as he snatched his chart out from under her fingers. Gesturing to them, he said, "Karev, Stevens, follow me. I've got a patient for you."

* * *

Mark collapsed into Meredith's bed, not bothering to strip out of his clothes before tucking himself against her.

She shifted in her sleep, moving towards him. Mark was all to happy to reach for her, to wrap his arms around her and tuck her face into his chest. She hummed a little bit, still mostly asleep but finding instinctual comfort in his motions, before settling against him.

Mark ducked his head down, pressing his lips against his hair. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath.

This was worth it, he thought. When everything else in his life had been falling apart around him, Meredith had been there. She heard what he had done. Then she had let him into her life regardless, had looked at his actions and still seen him as a person worthy of her attention, had seen him as someone worthy of her trust and love.

That was more than Derek and Addison had done for him.

Keeping someone who treated him the way Meredith treated him was worth getting rid of people who treated him the way Derek and Addison had been treating him.

Still.

He found himself holding her a little tighter, keeping her closer to him.

He wasn't giving this up, but he needed a moment to try and forget the pain of losing his two best friends. 

* * *

Mark was lying in bed next to Meredith, hands curled around his second cup of coffee while Meredith was tucked into his side studying for her internship exam and eating cereal out of the box, when someone knocked on Meredith's bedroom door. He was so comfortable, sleepy and content, and so used to the rowdiness of Meredith's house that the sound barely broke through his sleepy haze.

Before Meredith could call anything out, the door opened.

"Am I interrupting?" Cristina asked as she barged in.

"Not really," Meredith said. "Mark doesn't usually function until his third or fourth cup."

Some part of Mark wanted to object to that, but he supposed from Meredith's point of view it was true. He was comfort with her, happy in her bed and in her arms. At her place, he acted the way he would in his own home instead of in the home of some one-night stand who he needed to either give another round to before he left or dart out before they woke up.

"Good," Cristina said. "I need him to get out."

Mark glanced down at his coffee cup, still half full, before looking back at Cristina.

An objection was on the tip of his tongue before he caught sight of her. She was sweaty and disheveled, hair flying in all directions. There was something dark in her expression, worried and panicked. And she'd clearly been running which Mark knew neither Cristina or Meredith did unless they were trying to steal a surgery.

Mark had learned in the months before their relationship had gone from platonic to romantic just how important Meredith's friends were to her, and how much more important the friends that she labeled her people were to her.

"Alright," Mark agreed, voice low and rough. He downed the rest of his coffee before untangling himself from Meredith and swinging off the bed. He had barely made it off the bed before Cristina was rushing across the room, throwing herself onto it and pressing close to Meredith. "I'm going to get more coffee and see if Izzie will make me pancakes."

* * *

"Yeah? Then how come I walked across the parking lot and realized I can't go home?" Cristina said. "Where am I supposed to go?"

"My place," Mark said. Both of the women on the bench looked up when he approached. He had been waiting near the doorway for Meredith to finish her conversation, but when he'd seen the broken look on Cristina's face he had approached, knowing that with everything that had come up today something like this would come up. Neither of them looked surprised to see him, just exhausted and heavy hearted in the way that came with Cristina having betrayed someone she loved and Meredith dealing with her best friend feeling the way Cristina was. "You can't go to Meredith's place because George is there and you can't go to your place because Burke is there. So you'll go to my place."

There was a quiet moment before Meredith said, "Mark..."

"I don't know you," Cristina said, looking at him. "We aren't friends. We're barely acquaintances."

Mark crouched down in front of Cristina, ignoring Meredith he placed both of his hands on Cristina's knees and looked up at her.

"You're right," Mark told her, looking her in the eyes. "We don't know each other. But I love Meredith and you're her best friend. You're her person, her _sister._ I'd like to be with Meredith for a long time and that means that I'm going to have to get to know you, that means that one day we're going to be family too. And I don't want to look back on today and now I could've helped you and didn't." He gave her a second to adsorb that. Then he said,, "So you're going to let Meredith drive you over to my place while I go to yours and get whatever you need to stay with me for a couple of days. Alright?"

There was a long quiet moment, Meredith glancing between them but obviously wanting this to be a decision Cristina made for herself, before Cristina took a deep breath.

"Okay," Cristina said.

"Okay," Mark agreed. He squeezed her knees quickly, a show of support and comfort, before pushing himself back up to his feet. "Mer, do you want me to drop by the house and grab you some clothes as well?"

"Yes," Meredith said without a second of hesitation. Cristina was her person. Nothing would keep her from staying with her right now, not given an environment where they could be together without either of them being attacked by the people they lived with. "Please."

* * *

"Hey," Mark greeted as Meredith approached him, a smile spreading across his lips. Mark's shift had started early that morning, so he had left the apartment before Meredith and Cristina had gotten around. He had slept on the couch, leaving Cristina and Meredith to curl up together on the bed. Given the sounds he had heard from the living room after he'd left them, crying and whispering, he figured it had been the right choice. "You will not believe the case I have-"

"I would love to hear about it, but I'm in a hurry," Meredith said, cutting him off. Mark raised an eyebrow, surprised at her cutting him off. "I'm scrubbing in on my half-sisters c-section in thirty minutes."

Mark felt his eyebrow raising. "Really."

"Yes."

Mark watched her for a moment before asking, "How are you feeling about that?"

"I'm not feeling anything. She's not my family."

"No," Mark agreed, because he knew it was true. Meredith's family was him, was Cristina, was Izzie and George and Alex. "But she could've been in another world and I think you're having a hard time forgetting that would-be world."

There was a quiet beat before Meredith spoke again, speaking slowly and cautiously, "Is it wrong of me to wonder why they're the children he loves? Is it wrong of me to wonder why I'm not good enough, but Molly is? But her sister is?"

"No. I think it's pretty natural."

"Okay," Meredith said, nodding a bit. She straightened up, just a short conversation and reassurance enough to make her more comfortable. "Okay."

"Okay," Mark echoed. He leaned over to press a kiss against her hair. "Go get ready for surgery."

* * *

Mark was sitting in the cafeteria, eating with one hand while flipping through the pages of the conjoined twins file with the other. The surgery was going to be starting soon after he ate and he wanted to make sure he had everything straight before they made it that far.

He was leaning forward to take a bit of his sandwich when he heard the screech of the chair across from him being pulled away from the table.

"Cristina...." Doctor Burke said, speaking as though the words physically pained him to say. "Cristina did not come home last night." Mark looked up at him, raising an eyebrow and waiting. Burke stared at him for a minute before seeming to realize that Mark would not be giving him anything unless he said something else. "Since you are with Meredith, I thought you might know where she was last night."

"I do."

Burke's jaw tightened for a second. Then he said, "Where?"

Mark hummed a bit, considering. He didn't want to betray Cristina's trust by telling Burke things she didn't want him to know, but he didn't think this was a betrayal as long as he didn't tell Burke what had happened last night and he didn't think Burke deserved to worry about where Cristina had slept either. He knew he would have wanted to know if it was him fighting with Meredith.

"She stayed at my apartment with Meredith and I," Mark told him. Knowing that Burke was close to Derek and certain that his former friend probably hadn't passed on good opinions of him, Mark added, "The girls took the bed and I slept on the couch."

"Okay."

Mark expected that to be the end of it, but Burke didn't move. He let the silence sit for a few minutes before saying, "I'm not going to tell you anything other than that, so if you're trying to work yourself up to another question you might as well stop now."

"You wouldn't tell me?"

"No. Telling you anything else would be a betrayal of the trust Meredith and Cristina have placed in me." He shrugged a bit before shoving the last bite of his sandwich in his mouth. As he pushed himself to his feet, Mark said, "If you want to know anything else, you're going to have to get over yourself and ask Cristina yourself."

"Get over _myself_?" Burke asked, anger in his voice. "Cristina-"

"I'm not saying you're the only one responsible," Mark interrupted. "I'm just saying that this particular dance took two."

* * *

Spotting Mark standing by the door, Meredith found herself picking up her pace a little bit.

"Mark," she said, drawing his attention away from his phone and to her. He smiled as soon as he laid eyes on her, a bright affectionate thing. Having spent so much of her day dealing with the coldness anger and sadness that came with her father's absence from her life and the seeing his new family, Meredith was happy to see Mark looking at her like that.

"Hey, gorgeous," he said. As she neared him, he reached one hand out for her.

He was probably expecting her to grab it and lace their fingers together, but Meredith chose instead to tuck herself in close to him.

Instead he rested his arm over her shoulders, hand settling above her breasts.

"Long day?" he asked as he pressed his lips to her temple.

"Yeah." As they started walking towards the door, she said, "I think I'm going to see my mom for a little bit tonight."

"Why don't I drop you off over there? You can let me know when you're finished and we can go grab dinner together."

"I might not be the best company afterwards."

"Nonsense," Mark told her. "I can't think of anyone I'd want to spend time with more than you."

Meredith let out a little laugh despite herself, feeling her mood lifting already. "You're a sap."

"Only for you." Mark pressed another kiss against her temple as he repeated, soft in that way that made it seem that much more real and honest, "Only for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! A shorter wait this time since I'm all by myself this week. It's easier to re-watch Greys when my girlfriend isn't in town, tbh. Especially given that I have to constantly start and stop to write this. I hope you all enjoyed this chapter!
> 
> 2) I tried to mix up the POVs a bit in this chapter - a bit more like Greys with it's different characters. Please let me know if the change seems too sudden or doesn't work for this series. I'd appreciate the feedback!
> 
> 3) I don't mean to bash Derek by having Mark open up to Cristina and Meredith's friends, but given Mark's relationships with Derek and Addison and Mark's relationship with Derek's family I think he understands found family and how important that is much more than Derek does.


	7. Six Days: Part I - Six Days: Part II

Meredith lowered herself down so she was cross-legged on the bed, a cup of coffee wrapped in her hands. She sat knee-to-knee with Mark who was sitting against the headboard in the exact same position. Meredith was watching Mark while Mark was staring somewhere over Meredith's shoulder, looking thoughtful and devastated and conflicted all at once.

He'd been sitting like that since before Meredith had woken up almost an hour ago.

Meredith didn't push him to speak now anymore than she did earlier that day. She was worried about him, concern swishing heavily in her gut, but whatever was on his mind was clearly effecting him deeply. Meredith knew what it was like to not want to talk about a hurt like that, so she wouldn't push him. Forcing him to talk about a pain like that wouldn't help either of them.

Instead, she just lifted her coffee cup to her mouth and took a sip as she watched him,

"I," Mark said, speaking after having been sitting in silence for an hour, "I hate Addison Montgomery."

Meredith's eyebrows knitted together, confusion settling with the concern. She couldn't imagine what Addison had done to Mark this early in the day. Still, what Mark needed wasn't questioning and pushing. "Alright."

"I can't tell you why," Mark told her. He looked away from the wall, turning his gaze on her. "I don't want to hide anything from you and especially not this. But just _thinking_  about this makes me so....so angry and upset. I would tell you, but I don't think I can talk about this."

"That's okay." She reached out, settling her hand on his knee. She waited a moment, giving him the chance to push her off if he didn't want to be touched. When he didn't, she said, "I'm here for you. Regardless of whether you want to talk about it or not."

Mark moved to rest his hand over hers. She flipped her palm so she could slip her fingers through his, twining their fingers together and giving his hand a tight squeeze. "Thank you."

"You don't have to thank me for this. I love you."

* * *

"Do you have a father?"

"I have a step-father. He's nice. I see him for Yom Kippur." Quiet settled between Cristina and Meredith for a moment, each of them drawn into other thoughts. After several beats, Cristina said, "Have you talked to Mark about all of this?" When Meredith just looked at her, half absorbed in her thoughts and unsure what it was that Cristina was talking about, she clarified, "About Thatcher being around? And his nice wife? And the baby?"

"Oh. No." Meredith shook her head. "Something's bothering him this week. He doesn't need me dumping all my twisted family drama on him."

Cristina hummed a bit, drumming her fingers against the pharmacy counter.

"I don't think going through his own stuff means that he doesn't want to know what you're going through and help you," Cristina said.

"You aren't talking to Burke. Do you really have a high ground here?"

"Yes," Cristina said without hesitation. "Because Burke and I are dating, yes, but we aren't you and Mark. He's important to me, but he's not my person. He's not you. But Mark is one of your people. You have me and you have Mark. And us talking about this means that this isn't a thing you keep from your people."

* * *

"-my french toast," Izzie said, voice dark and unhappy.

"French toast?" Meredith asked as she stepped into the kitchen. "Can I have some?"

"No, because George made me burn it."

Meredith's gaze darted from George to Izzie. George looked absolutely ecstatic, but Izzie seemed as though she was either going to hit George with the spatula or go storming out. She wondered for a moment if she should just turn around and go back upstairs. In the end, she decided to ask, "What's going on?"

"Izzie deposited the check!" George exclaimed.

"You did?" Meredith looked over at the fridge. It wasn't exactly unusual to find the check missing since Izzie liked to leave it around places as if she was hoping it would get destroyed. But George's words combined with the check not being attached to it's usual magnet had her perking up. "You did! You deposited the check!"

"I would like to stop talking about the check," Izzie said. Before Meredith could say anything else, Izzie said, "Mark didn't come over last night either?"

Meredith considered bringing the conversation back to the check, but a long glance at Izzie's face had her changing her mind. She thought depositing the check was a good thing, thought it would mean that Izzie was starting a new phase in her healing. Izzie didn't appear to think so, though.

"No," she said after a moment. "He didn't come over last night either."

"And I take it, that means that the bags under your eyes are because you still aren't sleeping?"

"Nope." 

* * *

Mark was hacking into his fist, body shaking with the force of it, when he saw moment out of the corner of his eye.

"Oh my god." He looked up to find Addison leaning against the doorway to the breakroom. There was amusement in her eyes. "Look at you."

"I'm miserable," he croaked out. And god, was he. Everything was cold and wet. He hadn't slept at all during the week because he'd gotten so used to sleeping at Meredith's place that his own apartment felt empty and so used to sleeping with Meredith that his bed felt too big. And now, on top of it all, he was pretty sure he had walking pneumonia.

"It's the rain," Addison said. She shifted, pushing her hair out of her face. "The constant dampness in the air. It takes the body a while to get used to it."

"I hate it," Mark said.

"Then go home."

"This _is_ my home," Mark said. "This is where the woman I love lives, this is where the people that are becoming my family live." He felt a sharp rush of anger flush through him as he looked at Addison, as he remembered everything she had done and thought about her laughing at his misery moments before. Addison wasn't a bad person, but she had been incredibly cruel to him at times. "And I am _miserable_  because I can't be with any of them right now. Because I can't stop thinking about how I could be in New York, how we could have had a baby together, how I could be somewhere holding my child instead of sitting here with walking pneumonia. I can't be with the woman I love because even though I'm not in love with you anymore, I can't stop being upset that I could've had a family with you."

"You didn't want a family with me. You wanted to one-up Derek."

"No, Addison. I did want a family with you. You didn't want a family with me, so you never treated me or our relationship seriously." Mark thought about everything he'd been feeling throughout the week, about wondering about the possibilities and the child he could have had, about avoiding Meredith so he wouldn't snap at her but missing her like a missing limb, about every thought and feeling that had passed through him. Then he said, "But that's fine, because I don't want a family with you anymore."

* * *

Meredith felt a pang of surprised when she opened the door to find Mark standing on the other side.

"Hey," she said.

"Hey," Mark said. He lifted the bag in his hand, showing it to her. "I brought you take-out to make up for being kind of absent this week."

"I appreciate it, but I would have let you in even without it." She pulled the door open further, making room for Mark to come into the house. "It's okay that you needed some time and space this week."

"I'm not really sure that _was_  what I needed," Mark said. He stepped closer to her, but didn't move to push into the house. Instead he just hovered in her space, looking down at her with eyes filled with affection and sadness at the same time. "I thought it was. I thought that dealing with this week would be easier if I wasn't around you. But I think what I really should have done was talk to you about things right away. Talking to you always makes me feel better than not talking to you. And I thought that would be different with this given the subject, but I think it honestly just made me angrier? And sadder. And lonelier, I think."

Meredith hummed a little bit.

She didn't like the sadness in his face. She had known since the beginning of the week that whatever had Mark so down wasn't her fault. That didn't mean she liked seeing him feel this way or that she didn't want to do what she could to help him.

"Do you want to talk about it now?" she asked. "We can sit on my bed with the takeout so that none of the others will interrupt us and you can tell me what's been going on."

Mark nodded. His voice was soft as he said, "Yeah. That sounds like a good plan."

"Okay." Meredith reached out, taking his hand in hers. She didn't lock their fingers right away, giving him a chance to pull away if he didn't want to be upset. When he didn't, she slipped her fingers through his and used the hold to pull him through the door with her. "Okay."

* * *

Late that night found the take-out containers lying empty on the side table while Meredith and Mark laid in the bed together. Meredith was propped up against all of the pillows while Mark laid with his head in her lap. She ran her fingers through his head, her touch gentle and caring.

They had been laying in silence for a while.

Mark's voice broke through it, "Would I be a terrible father?" He paused for a second before saying, "Would I have been a terrible father?"

Her fingers paused for a second, taken off-guard by the sudden question. But there wasn't any real hesitation in her answering, "No. You would have been a good father." When Mark didn't say anything, just hummed and pressed his face against her thigh, she continued, "You will be a good father, Mark. You care about the people you love and there is no doubt in my mind that you would love any child you had the second they were born. If you had a son, you would teach him how to play football and you would teach him how to charm all of his teachers and when he had his first crush he would know that he could ask you for advice because he will know that he can trust you. If you had a daughter, you would probably still teach her how to play football because you'd want her to know how to kick the shit out of guys like you but you would also learn the names of every ballet move she learned in her classes and you sit with her through every difficult homework assignment and when she was old enough she will never had thought of not being walked down the aisle by you because she will have been there for her entire life." Her fingers brushed against his scalp, touch soft. She spoke firmly, "You will be a great father, Mark."

Mark was quiet for a moment before murmuring, lips brushing softly against her thigh, "Thank you."

"You don't have to say thank you for telling the truth."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hi guys! I hope you liked this chapter!
> 
> 2) I left this chapter a little short since it felt strange to add anything else onto this fic?


	8. Great Expectations - Drowning on Dry Land

"Did someone order enough pizza for an army?"

Meredith looked away from the TV screen in time to see Mark enter the living room, balancing a stack of pizza boxes in his arms.

"Did you pay for those?" Meredith asked, frowning a bit.

"Yeah. The guy was about to knock on the door when I came up the steps, so I took care of it and sent him on his way."

"You didn't have to do that."

"Uh, yes, he did," Cristina said. She had been tucked against Meredith's side, buried under a mound of blankets, but now she popped up to look over the back of the couch as well. "If he didn't than I would have had to pay for them. And I've spent enough money on take-out this week."

Mark looked a little confused at the sight of her, but it smoothed out quickly. Meredith appreciated his ability to roll with the sudden appearances of her friends. As he moved across the room to set the boxes down on the coffee table, he said, "I didn't realize you were coming over. The amount of pizzas makes more sense now."

"I know. Meredith keeps such good track of her diet when you're around that she really has to let go when I'm here."

"Hey," she objected, reaching out to shove at Cristina. Her friend wobbled towards the arm of the couch, but managed to stay up on her knees instead of falling over.

Mark let out a loud laugh as he came around the couch. "Well, I'll be sure to look the other way while Mer scarfs down six slices of pizza than."

"You are such a good boyfriend Mark," Cristina said.

"Yeah, well, someone had to pick up the slack," Meredith said.

She saw Mark react to the words, shoulders stiffening momentarily. As he dropped the boxes down, he asked, "Did something happen with Burke?"

"Nothing that hasn't already been happening," Cristina replied. She shot Meredith a small look, obviously annoyed with Meredith for telling, but she ignored her.

This was Mark, not Izzie or George who Cristina barely tolerated. Mark understood the relationship Meredith and Cristina shared and respected it more than any of the other people in their lives had - more than Izzie and George who chose jealousy over understanding, more than Derek and Burke who believed romance was more important than what the girls shared.

This was Mark, who never pushed them apart, who instead got to know Cristina because he knew how important she was to Meredith. This was Mark who Meredith loved and who Cristina had grown to like as much as she liked anyone.

Mark was _theirs_  and that meant they didn't keep secrets from him, just like they didn't keep secrets from each other.

"He'd not feeding her," Meredith told Mark. "She's been living off cereal and take-out."

He looked over at them, frowning. "Really?" Cristina hummed noncommittal as she tucked herself back down into her blankets and turned her attention back to the movie they were playing. He watched her for a moment before turning back to the pizzas. "Alright. Stay the night with us. I'll make you some stuff that you can warm up at home."

Cristina didn't say anything, but that night Meredith fell asleep on the couch with Mark's arms wrapped around her and Cristina's head in her lap. 

* * *

"I just heard something interesting," Mark said as he slipped into place next to Meredith, leaning his back against the desk while holding two cups of coffee in his hand. Meredith took the one he held out to her without hesitation.

"Thank you." Meredith took a long sip of the coffee in her hands, still working on the charts she was doing on Mark's patient, Jim. She and Alex had been working with him on his semi-comatose patient all morning long. "What did you hear?"

"Richard is retiring."

Meredith had been lifting her coffee to her mouth for another sip, but now she halted mid-movement. "What."

"I heard earlier." He took a drink of his own before saying, "I was thinking of throwing my hat in the ring."

Meredith couldn't help the sharp laugh that burst out of her throat. "What?"

"What? You don't think I could be chief of surgery?"

"I think you don't really _want_  to be chief of surgery. You love what you do now. You'd hate spending all day in that office doing paperwork. And if you went as long as Richard does without seeing the OR, you would actually go crazy."

Mark was quiet for a moment, just sipping at his drink. After a moment, he asked, "Aren't I supposed to be interested in that, though? I mean....a guy my age? Not trying for chief of surgery?"

"Maybe, but the only thing that promotion would do is make you hate a job that you love." When Mark was silent, Meredith looked up at him. "Think about what I said, okay? But if you really want the job, go for it. I'll be here for you."

He had been staring out at the hospital around them, but now he turned towards her with a large smile on his lips. "Thank you." He leaned in, pressing their lips together. The kiss was short, but soft and sweet. When they pulled apart, he murmured, "I love you."

"I love you too."

* * *

"What?" Mark said, throwing his arms open as he approached Addison, Burke, and Derek huddled together on the bridge. He grinned widely, ignoring the looks of irritation that all three of them shot him. He was getting used to being disliked by the other attendings. It would have been nice to talk to someone his own age, but the interns were more fun anyway. "No one invited me to the party?"

Derek let out an audible huff. He looked as though he was about to snap at Mark when something over Mark's shoulder caught his attention. "Chief!"

Pandemonium descended on the bridge as all three of the other attendings started bombarding Richard with questions.

Mark followed them towards him, watching each of them as they shouted and tried frantically to get Richard's attention over the other two.

"Stop, stop, stop," Richard said, holding his hands out towards them. It reminded Mark of Derek's mother, trying to keep all of the girls and Derek and Mark from shouting at her all at once. The memory made him smile for a moment before he remembered that Derek wasn't speaking to him, which meant that Mark hadn't talked to any of their family. "One at a time here." He glanced at the people in front of him before catching sight of Mark. "You. What's all this about?"

"Oh, they all want to be chief," Mark said. Wanting to make his own intentions clear, he added, "I'm just here to watch the show."

Because he'd thought about it all day and Meredith was right. He wasn't aiming for the chiefs job because it was something he would actually enjoy, he just felt like he had to do something more in his career. He didn't have to be chief to do that, though. He was the best plastic surgeon in the country, he could put his knowledge to work for a clinical trial or something.

Chief was something that Derek strove for, something Derek wanted. 

Mark was done trying to be Derek Shepherd. He wanted to do something that _he_  wanted. 

 

 

* * *

 

 

"Mark!" He was looking down at one of his charts when he heard the shout of his name. He looked up instantly to find Cristina half jogging down the hospital corridor, just barely restraining herself from running at him. Surprise filled his chest at the sight. It really wasn't like Cristina to run at him like this. "Hey. When was the last time you spoke to Meredith?"

Mark thought about it for a moment before saying, "This morning? She got a call from the home her mom is in while I was in the shower. Said it was an emergency and ran out." Thinking about the way Cristina had come at him, Mark felt panic flare in his chest. "Why are you asking? Did something happen to Mer?"

"Yes." Cristina stopped, "Well, no, but yes? It happened to Mer because it happened to her mom. She woke up today and she was lucid."

The panic that had flared at Cristina's initial answer calmed. He opened his mouth to tell her not to scare him like that, only to stop when his brain processed what she had said. "Ellis is lucid?"

"Yeah. She was brought into the hospital too. Burke assigned me to her."

"Jesus." Mark reached up to run a hand through his head, panic starting to replace itself with cold worry and concern. He didn't know the full details, but he knew that Meredith's relationship with her mother was a rough thing. "Have you seen Meredith?"

"Not yet. She wasn't in Ellis' room when I was doing vitals."

"I assume your looking for her?"

"Yeah."

"I'll let you know if I see her as long as you do the same."

"Deal."

"Good," Mark said. He got the feeling that Meredith was going to need both of them by her side today. 

* * *

Meredith was sitting in the waiting room, wondering if she could get away with not entering her mother's hospital room for the rest of her stay, when she felt someone flop down into the seat next to her.

"Hey," Mark said, voice soft. He shifted close enough that their shoulders bumped. He took the hand resting on her knee away and twined their fingers together. "I heard what's going on from Cristina."

"Yeah...I'm sorry I didn't come find you."

"It's alright." Mark squeezed her hand. "I'm here for you, though. If you want to be alone than I'll go check on my patients and check up on you at lunch time. If you want me to sit here with you quietly than that's okay. If you want me to sit here and talk with you than we can do that too."

Meredith didn't say anything, instead just squeezing his hand back to keep him there.

After a long moment, she murmured, "I told her I was happy and she asked what had happened to me. She told me she was disappointed in me for being ordinary instead of extraordinary." She felt tears prickle at her eyes, something heavy resting in her chest. She choked it down. "We haven't talked properly in five years. And the first thing she really said to me was how big of a disappointment I am."

Mark shifted immediately, letting go of her hand in favor of wrapping his arm around her and tugging her close. Meredith refused to cry, but that didn't mean she passed up the opportunity to bury her face in his chest and hide from the world around her.

"You are anything but ordinary, Meredith Grey," Mark told her. "And there is nothing wrong with being happy."

"She makes it hard to believe that."

"I know." He pressed a kiss against her hair. Meredith felt a strange sort of relief when he didn't pull away afterwards, instead resting her cheek against her head. She knew their positioning had to be all kinds of uncomfortable for him, but she felt like she was shattered to pieces and having him near helped piece her back together. "I am so sorry she does that. You deserve better."

They sat like that for a long while, neither of them saying anything.

It was Mark's pager going off that jostled them out of their bubble.

"Hey," he murmured as he looked at it, having kept Meredith close while rummaging in his pockets. "I've got an emergency. You want to come with?"

Meredith couldn't describe how much it meant to her that Mark understood what she needed, that he understood that she couldn't go back into her mother's room and that what she desperately needed was to be busy and doing something. She couldn't describe how much it meant that Mark wasn't pushing her to take her time.

Meredith had never been good with having time.

"Yeah," Meredith said. "I really do."

* * *

Mark and Meredith were walking towards the hospital doors, hands loosely held between them when Meredith stopped.

Mark glanced at her, curious.

"Forget something?" he asked.

She was quiet for a moment, trapping her lip between her teeth and rolling it, before she said, "Yeah. I think so."

Between the strange look in her eyes and her hesitance, Mark assumed it was something to do with her mother.

"Do you want me to wait?" he asked.

Another silent moment then a nod. "Yeah. That would be nice."

"Alright." Squeezing her hand, Mark rocked into press a kiss against her forehead. "I'm going to sit in the waiting area then. Come get me when your ready to head home."

 

 

* * *

 

 

Mark was sitting on the toilet seat, fully dressed and fiddling with his phone, when Meredith emerged from the bath water gasping.

"You alright?" Mark asked. Meredith reached up, rubbing water from her eyes and trying to ignore the blackness spotting her vision. He wasn't watching her, his face carefully blank, but Meredith could see the worry that lay underneath. It was unusual for him to hide something like that from her. He really only did that when he was worried about pushing her too far. "You were under there for a while."

"I'm fine," Meredith said. "You know how long I can hold my breath. You saw me do it with the toxic girl."

"Yeah, you were under there way longer than you were in the OR with toxic girl."

"Well," she said, pushing her hair away from face now that her eyes were wiped off. "I'm fine."

Mark watched her for another moment before nodding. "Alright. If your sure."

"I am." She asked, "Why are you in here anyway?"

"My beard is getting a little scruffy so I was going to do some maintenance," Mark said, rubbing at his jaw. "You were under there for a while, though, so I got worried and distracted."

"That a good idea." Meredith liked Mark's beard, her thighs did not. "Go do that."

"Aye aye captain." He pushed himself off the toilet seat. But instead of moving towards the sink, he tucked in near the bathtub and pressed a kiss against her wet lips. There was something serious in his eyes as he murmured, "I love you."

"I love you too," she returned. Not liking the way he was looking at her, not because it scared her but because she had a sneaking suspicion he knew some of what she'd been thinking under the water and didn't want to talk about it, she darted in for another kiss before commanding, "To the sink with you, please."

* * *

Mark walked up to the nurses station, peering at the charts in his hand. He had just set it down on the desk when he heard Derek say, "And now that you and Cristina are engaged, you have a lot of work to do."

He looked up in time to see Burke laughing as he ducked his head.

Surprised, Mark said, "You and Cristina are getting hitched?" Burke and Derek's smiles dropped as he spoke, but Mark was too busy with the happiness spreading through his chest to be concerned about it. He was about to offer a congratulations when something else occurred to him. "Wait, wait. Why am I hearing this from you?"

Burke raised an eyebrow. "Is there someone else you should have heard it from?"

"Yeah. _Cristina_ ," Mark said. Then amended, "Or Meredith, but I think Cristina probably would have told her to wait to tell me."

"And why is that?"

There was a hint of something less friendly in Burke's voice, but Mark spoke anyway, "Because I'm one of Cristina's people. It's something I should have heard from her."

Derek let out a snort of loud, mean laughter. "Boyfriends are part of the club now?"

"I was part of the club before I was Meredith's boyfriend and I'll be part of the club even if we break up for some reason," Mark said. Then something else occurred to Mark. "You were telling Derek before Cristina told me?"

"I thought my friend deserved to know I was engaged. I wasn't aware that Cristina's friends took precedence."

"Cristina's friends don't. Her people do." When Derek and Burke just look at him, both judging and unfriendly, Mark huffed. "Okay, I'm going to spell this out for you because if you don't understand this you and Cristina aren't going to last and Cristina seems to love you." He moved a little closer to Burke, forcing the man to give him his attention. "We aren't just her friends, Burke. Cristina's father is dead, her mother doesn't understand her, and her step-father is an _oral surgeon_. We are her people. Meredith and I are her family. So no, Cristina's friends don't take precedence over yours, but Meredith and I certainly do."

Feeling very abruptly fed up with everyone, Mark turned around. "I'm going to prep for the trauma. You think about what I said, because I'm not kidding when I say that if you don't get with the program you won't be part of her life anymore. She'll drop you before she drops either of us." 

* * *

"Okay, so I want to first warn you that what I am about to say is something that I shouldn't know," Mark said as he fell into step with Cristina. He reached over to take some of the supplies from her without stopping either of them, moving quickly and swiftly so as not to get in her way.

"What does that mean?" Cristina asked.

Instead of answering, Mark said, "Congratulations on your engagement! I overheard Burke telling Derek earlier."

"What?" her voice was harsh, surprised and upset all at once. "He told Derek? I haven't told Meredith or you yet!"

"Well, I know now?"

"You shouldn't," Cristina said.

"I could pretend not to know and you could tell me yourself?"

Cristina glowered at him. "That doesn't help." Mark shrugged. She let out a sharp noise, somewhere between a quiet scream and a growl. "I specifically told him not to tell _anyone_  until I had told Meredith."

"And me right?"

"You were implied. I didn't think I needed to spell that out for him but apparently I did!"

Mark hummed a bit.

They took a few steps in silence before Mark bumped his shoulder against hers. "Clusterfuck aside, I'm happy for you."

Her face softened for a moment. She knocked her shoulder against his as well. "Thanks." She let out a soft sigh, "Now if only I could find Meredith and let her know before it spreads around the hospital."

* * *

Meredith's back hit the cold water in the bay.

She had a moment to think 'oh' before her body sunk underneath.

A million things crossed her mind - the man on the pier, the lost little girl, the crash that had just happened here and all the bodies likely in the water with her.

She pushed herself up, gasping for water.

She fell back down in the water, unable to keep herself up.

She thought about Mark kissing her forehead when she got out of the tub and the way he'd murmured that he loved her. She thought about the strange look Cristina had given her in the locker room and how she'd gotten pulled out for the trauma before she figure out what her best friend was trying to tell her.

She pushed herself up, gaping for water.

She thought about her mother at Seattle Grace.

She thought about extraordinary and ordinary.

She thought about how nice it had felt to be sunk beneath the bath water earlier that day, how everything had been still and even her brain had been quiet.

Meredith let herself sink.

 

 

* * *

  
  
  
The OR rung with the sound of two pagers going off.

Mark kept his attention on the surgery in front of him.

"It's Dr. Stevens and Dr. Sloan," the nurse who had moved to the pagers said.

"That's okay," Izzie said. "It can wait." Mark thought the combination was a little strange, but there was an open brain in front of them so he didn't disagree.

"Uh, I think you'll want to take this." Then, "Especially you, Dr. Sloan."

Mark glanced up, looking at the nurse. "What? Is something wrong with one of my patients?"

"Not one of your patients, no," the nurse said. "But Meredith Grey was just brought in. It's en emergency."

Mark felt the world drop out from underneath him, panic flooding. There were so many ways a doctor could get hurt at a trauma scene and every single one of them was flowing through his thoughts. 

* * *

Mark ignored Derek sitting on the floor in front of the hospital room, crashing through the door.

"Mark!" Addison shouted the second he did. Mark froze, eyes catching on the body in front of her. Meredith looked so pale, wet and almost frozen. "You can't be in here."

When she turned, hands already reaching to push him out, Mark shook his head. "No. No, I can't leave her. I can't-"

"You can't stay here!" Addison said. She reached up, putting her hands on Mark's cheeks and forcing him to look her in the eyes. "You are just going to distract everyone here. So get out."

Mark didn't want to leave Meredith alone.

Mark didn't want to be left alone either.

"Addie," Mark said, vulnerability letting him forget how much everyone hated each other right now as he met her eyes. All he could think about was the woman he loved lying on a table looking as though he had already lost her and one of his best friends standing in front of him. "I'm supposed to spend the rest of my life with her. I can't-"

Addison's eyes flashed, something soft passing through before being overtaken by steel. She cut him off, "You won't. I'm going to make you don't. But I can't do that - _we_  can't do that - while you're in here. You have to leave."

All Mark wanted was for Meredith to come back to him and if that meant he had to leave than he would leave.

He let himself be pushed back out into the hallway by Addison.

He fell to his ass against the wall next to Derek.

Mark wrapped his arms around his knees and buried his face in them, thoughts focused entirely on the girl he so desperately wanted by his side.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! Sorry it's been so long since the last update, but I hope this was worth the wait!
> 
> 2) Stylistically, I wanted to try and make it clearer when the episode changes since it can sometimes make it sound like previous plot points haven't been addressed. Now when you see a larger gap between sections, it means the episode switched. Let me know if it works or not. 
> 
> 3) I don't really like Burke and I think that shines through a bit here? I just think he tries too much to change Cristina into who HE wants her to be. It's a problem I have with Owen as well. I'm sorry if it bothered anyone? 
> 
> 4) I'm hoping Meredith telling Mark about what her mom said doesn't seem too out of character?? Mark and Meredith have a very different relationship than Derek and Meredith, so they share more. Or at least, I've tried to set that up? 
> 
> 5) This one is heavy on the Cristina & Mark relationship. I quite like them together though. They make a good friendship.


	9. Some Kind of Miracle

Addison stood by the doorway, staring down at the body on the table as Richard did compressions.

Looking at Meredith Grey never failed to make her gut churn, never failed to make her choke on the bitterness of her failed marriage and the knowledge that her husband couldn't get over this woman long enough to even make a real attempt at fixing things with them. Addison had been the reason that Derek left her, but Meredith had been the reason that Derek wasn't willing to try again.

Staring at Meredith Grey now, though, made Addison think of Mark.

Things between the three of them - Addison, Derek, and Mark - were even most messed up then things just between Addison and Derek were. But she still cared about him. She didn't love him the way he had wanted her to love him, but she did love him.

She thought about the way he had looked at Meredith, the way he'd pleaded to be able to stay by Meredith's side, the way the idea of her dying had seemed to break every him.

She thought about the boy she had known when they were college, who had a smile for anyone who needed a pick me up and always brought coffee to all of their study sessions. She thought about the man she had worked with for the last few decades, who had flirted with every nurse and made every woman he knew feel beautiful and wanted. She thought about the man that she had been with for a few short weeks, how devoted he had been to her but how it still hadn't been enough for either of them.

She thought about the man who she had seen in the hospital room just minutes earlier.

Addison had chosen Derek over Mark, but Derek had chosen Meredith over her.

Mark and Meredith, though. They'd chosen each other.

And now Meredith was lying on the table in front of her while Mark sat in the hallway and Addison tried to figure out if she could help the man who had been her best friend for decades or if her hatred for Meredith was too strong for her to try.

Before she could come to a decision, her pager went off.

Shocked out of her thoughts, Addison reached for it and looked at the message.

"Addison," Bailey said."

"I have to go," she responded. "It's my Jane Doe."

"Just-They're waiting... for you. So whatever you choose to say will..."

Bailey stopped. The screeching of the machines attached to Meredith seemed louder than ever.

Addison nodded, just slightly. 

* * *

"Tell me," Derek said. Mark saw him moving in front of him, beelining for whoever had stepped out of the room they had Meredith in, but stayed where he was.

He sat on the floor with his knees close to his chest. His arms were on the top of them and he was staring absently at the wall across from him. He'd had his face buried in them for a long time, but his neck had begun to protest a while ago.

He was too afraid to look up, too afraid to hear what whoever had stepped out would say.

"Her temp's still only 86." Addison, Mark realized. He clutched at his legs a little harder. Addison wasn't Richard who loved Meredith in his own right and wouldn't want to admit how bad she was. Addison wasn't Bailey whose soft spot for her interns was a mile wide and would soften the blow for all of their sakes. Addison was a doctor who knew how to give bad news, but Meredith wasn't personal to her. "There's still no heartbeat. We're hoping once she warms up-"

The words 'no heartbeat' stuck in Mark's chest, attached themselves to his heart like a parasite sucking every thing out of him.

He wanted to spend his entire life with Meredith, talk with her all night while she tried to pick a specialization and wanted to kiss her until her knees were weak when she passed her boards and marry her in the spring while Cristina complained about flowers in her hair and spend years convincing Meredith that Ellis' flaws were not her own until they had a gaggle of children and wanted one day to feel her gnarled aging hand in his own.

The words 'no heartbeat' made those dreams feel like sand slipping from his grasp.

"I want to go in there," Derek said.

"No."

"There's a risk of brain damage. I need to go in there. I'm going in."

"Derek, you can't, not for Meredith, not for anybody. You're in no shape."

Derek let out a loud upset sound, knowing Addison was right but hating it, and turned away from her.

There was a moment before Addison said, quietly, "Mark."

"No," Mark said. He refused to look at her, burying his face back down in his knees.

"Mark..."

He felt cracked open, raw and broken. His voice was shaky as he told her, "I don't want to hear it unless she's okay." Squeezing his eyes shut even tighter, he murmured, "I _can't_  hear it unless she's okay."

There was a moment before Addison spoke again, voice soft and quiet, "Alright. I have to go check on my Jane Doe, but I'll be back when I can."

Mark barely heard the words, too busy trying to shut the world out until everything was okay again. 

* * *

Cristina walked down the aisles of the superstore.

She kept moving, pushing the cart she had grabbed and reaching for the items on the shelves that caught her eye.

She barely remembered most of the things she picked up, though she could pick up on strands of her thoughts. A picture frame because she was engaged now and she would want a photo of her and Meredith in their dresses at the wedding, a pen with characters on it from one of the stupid superhero movies that Mark made the three of them watch, tiny plastic chairs for her and Meredith to sit in years from now while Meredith and Mark's daughter had a tea party.

Mostly, her thoughts were this - her father's blood warm against her hands and his heart pounding against her skin, Meredith's body pale and her lips blue from the cold of the bay. Mostly, her thoughts were this - that life would be so incredibly dull without Meredith by her side for it. Mostly, her thoughts were this - that she hadn't cared for anyone since her father's death the way she cared for Meredith and Mark.

Mostly, her thoughts were this - Cristina often felt as though she hadn't really survived that car crash with her father and she didn't know what she would do if she lost Meredith.

* * *

"What happened in that water?" Denny said, appearing in front of Meredith when she turned around.

"I swam!" Meredith insisted. "I fought!"

"No, you didn't. And you can't stay here, Meredith," he said.

"I don't want to!" Meredith screamed. She moved away from him, turning to rummage through another set of bins for the drugs she hoped to use on Bonnie. Anything that would stop her from watching her bleed out again.

"Yeah. You do. It's easier." She could hear him moving around behind her, a faint remembered echo of boots against hospital tile. "But you can't, because George's dad died. Because Izzie lost me. And Cristina? When she was nine, she was in a car accident with her father and he bled out right in front of her while they waited for an ambulance to arrive. And Alex--"

"Stop!" Meredith insisted, spinning around to face him.

Denny didn't go into Alex, but instead he said, "They are barely breathing. This will break them. And none of them deserves that." He moved, making his way to sit on the table in front of her. "And this - This is the big one...so you pay attention. Do you know what losing you will do to Mark?"

Just hearing Mark's name was enough for Meredith to still, for her chest to suddenly feel cracked open and raw.

"You know how broken and lost he was," Denny said. "You know how he's been piecing himself back together, you know that you've been the glue helping him along just like he's been helping you. And you know how badly he wants to have a family someday and how desperately he wants that family to be with you. You know that he will _break_  all over again if he loses you. And he might not be strong enough to put himself back together this time, Meredith. You were the one who dragged him out of his heartbreak when Addison left him. But there won't be another you - there won't be anyone to pull him out of his depression if he loses you this way." 

* * *

Mark barely had time to register that someone else was in the hallway with him, Derek had fluttered out at some point under Addison's advisement that someone needed to watch over Ellis Grey but Mark had stayed sitting on the cold hospital floor and praying that someone would come out to tell him that Meredith's heart was beating again, before a hand was placed on his bicep.

He lifted his head just quickly enough to catch a glimpse of Cristina before she was fisting her fingers in his scrubs and pulling him to his feet. He complied without really thinking about it.

It wasn't until she pulled him into the room and he saw Meredith lying there that he struggled.

"No," he said. He tried to twist out of her grip, but he was reluctant to move too intensely when Cristina and Meredith were both right there. He didn't want to bump into Meredith's bed or send Cristina tumbling. "I don't want to be in here. No."

"I don't care." Cristina said. Her fingers tightened on his shirt, knuckles going white. "She needs us. We can't leave her."

"Cristina," Richard began.

"No," Cristina said. With the hand not holding Mark, she reached out and clasped her hand over Meredith's foot. "Try again." When no one moves, she tightened her hold on Mark even more. Her voice was loud and full of steel as she insisted, " _Try again!"_

Someone responded, but Mark could barely hear them. He was too busy staring at the woman on the table in front of him, too busy noticing how pale and washed out Meredith looked, too busy with the steady tone of the machine telling him that Meredith's heart wasn't beating.

He did, however, catch it when the machine hiccuped - when instead of the steady flatness of a still heart there was the sharpness of a heartbeat.

And then, when her heart steadied instead of falling silent again, Mark felt his legs collapse out from under him.

Cristina loosened her grip, letting him fall.

"Oh thank god," Mark said. His eyes were growing wet and his chest was heaving as he struggled to breath around the sobs stuck in his chest. "Thank god. Thank god. Thank god."

* * *

When Meredith finally woke up, Cristina and Mark were both there to coach her into speech.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone!! It's been another long wait and I apologize for that (especially since this chapter is short) but I hope this was worth it! 
> 
> 2) I apologize for the shortness, btw. This chapter only covers one episode because I felt like it was better alone rather than grouped with the next few episodes, but I also thought it would be too much to include it in the previous chapter?


	10. Scars and Souvenirs - Time After Time

Mark hadn't bothered giving Izzy any of his attention choosing instead to keep his head buried against his pillow, knew that his interruption wasn't really going to do anything since Izzy just wanted to yell at Meredith, but as Izzy walked out into the hallway he shifted.

"Hey," he said, sleepy and soft.

Meredith had been watching Izzy leave, but now she looked down. A smile settled on her face. "Good morning."

He motioned his head towards the door. "What was that about?"

"Izzy and Alex had thing." The words were accompanied by a vague hand gesture he knew was meant to represent 'the thing'.

Mark took a second to rife through his sleepy memories. When he was sure he hadn't just forgotten something, he said, "When?"

"Before Denny."

"Ah...." He glanced back towards the doorway, distantly able to hear Alex moving in and the roar of the shower as Izzie got ready for work. He would need to get up soon to take his turn in the shower, but for now he was warm under the blankets and happy tucked against Meredith's side. "Is having them both here going to be okay?"

"They'll get over it. They did before." Mark thought about the weird tension and hatred that always seemed to resonate between the two in question, wondering if Meredith was actually right about that. "And even if they don't, she's going to have to deal. Alex is one of our people. We aren't leaving him alone when he needs help."

Mark didn't really disagree so he let his head flop back against the pillow. "Alright. Wake me up when Izzy's out of the shower."

Meredith hummed quietly. He felt her arm moving before she set it against his head, scratching at his scalp. He let out a pleasant hum as he snuggled against the pillow. "Will do."

* * *

"Well," Mark said after he finished swallowing the chip he'd been eating when Meredith had flopped into the chair next to him and started rambling. "What do you want to do?"

"What do you mean?"

"Do you want to have dinner with them?" Mark asked. When Meredith stared at him, looking a little surprised that he wasn't pushing, he said, "I have never forced you to do anything before and I'm not going to start now. Regardless of what your step-mom thinks, your father isn't your family. And regardless of why he left you on your own, you aren't obligated to try with him. If you don't want to deal with them, then you don't have to. But if you do want to know him and you do want to try for some kind of relationship with him, then you should."

Meredith chewed on her lip for a moment, looking down at his food instead of at him.

Mark didn't bother saying anything, just continued eating and waited for her to come to her own conclusions.

"I just don't know how I feel," Meredith said at last. Mark hummed, encouraging her as he took a bite of his sandwich. "He's my dad. I don't remember him very well, but I do remember him and I remember that I loved him. He's not nothing to me."

"So go to dinner," Mark told her. When she met his eyes, he said, "You're confused, Mer. You have questions for him. You're not going to get answers by avoiding him. If you want them, you have to talk to him."

Meredith was quiet for a moment before she asked, "You'll come with me?"

"As long as you want me there." There was a silent moment, filled not with tension or awkwardness but with comfort and the absolute belief that he meant his words. He broke it after a while, knowing that Meredith likely didn't want to dwell on this regardless of her decision or reasons for making it. "Hey, what's up with Cristina? I saw her earlier ad she was acting weird."

"You haven't heard?" When Mark just raised an eyebrow, Meredith leaned forward with a grin on her face and murmured, "Cristina fucked the Cardio god when she was in college."

"Really?" Meredith nodded. He let out a low whistle. "Now I'm really starting to feel offended that she'd not attracted to me. Am I not powerful enough or something?"

* * *

"You look like you had a long day," Bailey said as she approached Richard.

He looked over just in time to see her set her charts down on the nurses desk. "You know what fragging is?"

"Mm-hmm."

Taking her hum as an affirmation, he said, "I've got an epidemic of it today. My esteemed attendings will be the death of me. Sloan's the only one of them not causing trouble."

She glanced up at him. "Wasn't Montgomery-Shepherd yelling at him in a hallway earlier?"

"Yes." He didn't bother wondering how Bailey had heard about the showdown. One way or another information always found it's way to her. "But I've already looked over the case and settled it. Mark was rushing, but only because he was worried about the patient and because in any other situation it would have been the most immediate problem. He and Addison have already spoken and agreed to communicate better so that they can keep Jane Doe and the baby healthy."

Bailey made a soft sound before asking, "Is there a front runner?"

Knowing she meant in the chief's race, which was the very thing that had all of his other attendings running around like chickens with their heads cut off, he let out a soft sigh. "I don't know. What I do know, though, is that I don't want my attendings tearing each other's throats out because of some internal power struggle. It's too dangerous for the hospital."

"Does that mean...is Colin Marlowe gonna be the new chief?"

"What it means is that I wish I could just make Sloan chief and be done with it." Sadly as far as Mark had come, he knew that his ob wasn't one that Mark was ready for - or that he wanted. Part of Richard was glad that Mark had recognized that rather than throwing his hat into the ring with the others. He could only imagine how much worse things would be if he didn't have a single attending with their head on straight. He took another deep breath, releasing it in one quick heavy sigh. Pushing himself away form the desk, he made to leave with a quick, "Good night, Dr. Bailey."

* * *

"Well this looks delicious, Meredith," Susan said as Meredith set the chicken dish down on the table.

Looking hurried and anxious as she sat down, Meredith said, "It wasn't me. Mark cooked dinner."

"Then it looks delicious, Mark," Susan said, flashing Mark a small smile.

Under the table, Mark reached out to place his hand on Meredith's knee and gave a light squeeze of encouragement. She'd been doing well so far. She left majority of the talking to Mark and spoke mostly to Susan when she did speak, but she had been trying. She had decided she wanted to be here, wanted to try, and even if it was awkward, she was putting her best foot forward. "Thank you. I try my best. Meredith tends to think that she can live off pizza and Chinese takeout if I don't make her something."

He had set things up for the roommates to be out while dinner happened when Meredith had first decided she'd rather do it at her place than at Thatcher and Susan's. He'd given Izzy and Alex both money to get dinner out, arranged for Izzy to get a manicure as a thank you and promised Alex a bottle of high priced whiskey.

They were Meredith's current family, yes, but the roommates had their own drama and Meredith didn't need them adding to the atmosphere tonight. What she needed was to face her father head on and have the opportunity to run away from the conversation, to make excuses to get the dinner Mark had cooked from the kitchen so she could take deep breaths or sit on the toilet seat for several minutes, and take a few deep breaths.

Susan let out a small laugh. "Thatcher's like that when I'm gone too. I went on a business trip once when our girls were little, came back to find that he had burned the wallpaper around the stove trying to make spaghetti the first night I was gone and he'd been ordering food out since."

"I don't think Meredith's ever done anything quite that extreme."

"She has," Thatcher said. It was the first time since he and Susan arrived that he'd spoken up without a question being asked of him. Mark felt Meredith going stiff next to him and squeezed her knee again, trying to offer comfort. Thatcher seemed to wilt a little under the table's attention, but instead of backing down he continued, "When she was....three or four, I think. Meredith wanted to make cupcakes for Mother's Day."

Meredith seemed surprised by the information. "I did?"

"Yes. I had taken you to the library that day and you had found a bunch of cookbooks."

When a strange silence settled, Susan prompted, "What happened, honey?"

"Oh uh..." Thatcher furrowed his eyebrows in thought for a moment before saying, "Meredith wanted to watch a show while they baked, I think. I sat down to watch it with her and we both ended up forgetting about them until I smelled something burning. By the time I realized what had happened they were just char." His lips quirked just a little, like he was remembering a fond memory. He said, "She cried for hours before she finally agreed that we could just go buy some."

"That sounds exactly like Meredith," Mark said, unable to keep the amusement from his voice.

"That sounds exactly like Thatcher too," Susan agreed.

Beside him, Mark could feel Meredith beginning to unwind.

This was still awkward, but she was starting to get more comfortable.

In the end that was all Mark wanted - for Meredith to feel comfortable enough to speak to her father and ask him whatever questions she needed answers to.

* * *

"You don't open yourself up to anyone. Sometimes... I think it's charming. She's different. She's not like other women. The simple fact is that you have never let me in. What, you think that it's gonna make a good marriage? I don't. I don't want you to marry me because your placating me. That doesn't interest me. Doesn't interest me at all."

In another world, Cristina would have let the words sit there, would have let Burke speak to her like that and then walk away.

In this world, Cristina has had Meredith by her side and Mark at her back.

In this world, Cristina has learned that Meredith isn't the only person in the world willing to learn her and accept her.

In this world, Burke pushes off of the nursing desk and Cristina says, "That is real rich, Burke." He turned looking at her, surprise and irritation in his eyes, like he wasn't expecting her to argue with him after he had spoken to her like that. "You preach to me about opening up to you, but you don't do anything to make me open myself up to you! You mock and yell at me for being attracted to your talent! Colin proposed to me more than once, Burke. If _talent_  was the only thing I was attracted to, I would have married him. And! You say you like that I'm different than other girls, but you constantly pressure me to give you the things you want despite them not being who I am. You don't want me to be the person I am. You want me to be the perfect woman for you."

She waited just a moment, waiting for him to respond.

When a minute passed in silence, she huffed.

"On second thought," she said, "I'm not going home. I'm spending the night at Meredith's place."

* * *

Late that night, Meredith found herself in the center of her bed with Cristina and Mark on either side of her.

Mark was reading an article on something that Meredith only half cared about, plastics had it's interesting cases but those didn't happen nearly as often as Mark seemed to think they did. Cristina had a plate of food balanced on her legs, having come into the house just after her father and Susan had left.

It had been a really rough night. Not necessarily because it hadn't been good, some part of Meredith did feel a little soothed by the events of the night and the knowledge that her father had memories of her which proved he hadn't forgotten her, but because it had rung her out and left her exhausted.

Now she was happy to be lying here with Cristina and Mark, to have the two people who she knew understood her and wouldn't make her do any of the exhausting work she'd been doing with her father. The two people who were with her through thick and thin and everything inbetween.

"Mark, how are you not dying of boredom reading that?" Cristina asked. "I can't imagine it's that exciting reading about the fifteen different things you can put inside of fake boobs."

Mark made an offended noise, lowering the papers to look over at Cristina. "You are never getting on any of my good surgeries ever again."

"That's okay. You only get one good one every six months."

Mark reached across Meredith to swat Cristina with the paper, leaving Cristina to tip away from him while trying to protect her food.

Meredith curled downwards to avoid their fighting and smiled at the warmth that settled in her chest.

She was going to try with her father and Susan, but this...this would always be the family that mattered the most.

* * *

 

 

 

"So I kind of left things to Meredith last night since she needed something to distract her from her dad," Mark said as Cristina settled into a space next to him at the nurses desk. He kept his voice loud enough for her to hear, but low enough that no one else could save the nurse in front of them. And the nurses gossiped, but they always seemed to know which secrets not to tell. "But do you need anything from me?"

Cristina was quiet for a moment before asking, eyes still on her chart as though she didn't care but her shoulders tense, "Am I sabotaging this engagement?"

Mark took a second to think about the way things had unfolded over the past few days.

Finally he said, "I don't think so." But then he added, "I think, though, that if you feel that way you should think about why you feel that way. What is it that makes you feel like you are? Are you subconsciously trying to and it's just not working? Or are you just nervous because things are changing and everything seems bigger because of it? Because one of those things are normal and one of those things means that maybe you don't want to be married."

She looked up from her charts after a moment, meeting his eyes.

"You are no help at all," she told him.

"Sorry." He tapped his pen against Jane-Doe's chart, "Would you feel better if I let you in on the face transplant?"

"Don't you already have Meredith?"

"I'm doing a face transplant, Cristina. I can take as many interns as I want."

For a moment it looked as though she was going to take his offer, but then her eyes slid back down to the chart in front of her and she shook her head. "No. I've got to stick this one out."

* * *

Mark glanced at Derek as he entered the conference room, bent over materials that Mark guessed were for his board proposal, but didn't say anything. Once upon a time, this was the sort of thing that Mark would have helped Derek with. But two women and a sea of betrayal and frustration sat between them now.

He was stopped in front of the cooler, filling a cup with water since it was always coldest here before he went back to preparing for the face transplant, when Derek said, his voice low and upset, "Why did you ask Meredith to do a bone graft on your Jane Doe?"

Mark stopped. He could feel the heated judgement in Derek's voice and that low level possession that was always present when Derek spoke of Meredith. His hand tightened on the cup as he turned to look at him. "Excuse me?"

"Why did you ask Meredith to do a bone graft on your Jane Doe?"

"Because I'm her teacher and that's my job," Mark told him. He could see Derek ramping up to say something, so he cut him off before he got the words out, "Karev's on the case because we all know he's enjoying Addison's service and even if he wasn't likely to join the baby squad, he's got a connection to the patient. Cristina might want the challenge of my case, but she's going into cardio so I don't see a point in asking her in unless she expresses interest in it. Steven's behind everyone and even if it's not by much, I'm not letting her in on the surgery. Which leaves me O'Malley or Meredith. O'Malley smells like a distillery, so I asked Meredith."

"You're setting her up and she can't fail right now."

"Why don't you let Meredith decide what she can and can't do?" Mark's hand tightened even harder, fingers pressing so hard against the cold metal of his thermos that his knuckles went white.

"I will hurt you if this goes wrong for her."

Something inside of Mark bubbled white hot. Before Derek could leave the room, Mark spat out, "Stop acting like you know what she's capable of. You are always underestimating her, always acting like she's going to break. Meredith is a stronger person than you or I have ever been. She's doesn't need or want to be babysat. She's going to weather the storm regardless of what I say. And unlike you - I plan to weather it with her rather than shield her from it so much that she breaks the second it hits again."

* * *

Mark stopped in front of Meredith, stopping her in the middle of fiddling with her cap.

"You remember all of the research you did?" he asked.

"Yes. And I got my error rate down while practicing," Meredith told him.

They'd made a deal earlier in the day, when Meredith had switched from researching to practicing on the dummy that if she couldn't get her error rate down to 1 error in every 10 tries than he was pulling her from the procedure. He loved her, but Meredith was an intern just like the rest and Mark wasn't going to let her in on his surgery if she was going to botch it.

"Alright then." He leaned in to press a kiss against her lips, just one soft peck. When he pulled away, he grinned at her with all of his teeth showing." Let's go remind this hospital that you're a surgeon."

Mark hadn't lied when he told Derek why he had chosen Meredith, but he hadn't mentioned how upset Meredith was at the way the hospital had been looking at her.

Derek didn't need to know about the conversations Mark and Meredith had, whispering to each other while sweaty and tangled together in bed.

* * *

Late that night, after the surgery had finished and they had celebrated with dinner out and drinks at Joes, Meredith and Mark laid in bed together.

"What do you think my mother would have thought about today?" Meredith murmured.

Mark was curled around her from behind, but he managed to find a way to get jut a little closer as he said, "I didn't know her well enough for that. I think you're the only one who knows the answer." Meredith hummed. She rested her hands against Mark's wrists, not really gripping them so much as just letting her hands rest there. Mark was quiet for a moment before he said, murmuring against her hair, "No matter what your mother would have said, though, you did amazing today. And I'm proud of you."

Her fingers curled on his skin.

Her voice was soft, like she felt a little broken and Mark's words had been just what she needed, as she whispered, "Thank you."

* * *

 

 

 

"I heard the most awkward conversation between the chief and a woman he was trying to flirt with today," Mark said as he fell into step with Meredith.

The two of them had come into work separately, Mark having gotten called in a little while before his shift, so Mark was taking advantage of Jane Doe being the first on Bailey's schedule. They were going to end up in the same place, anyway, so he might as well spend a couple of minutes with his girlfriend.

"Pretty sure it wasn't as awkward as my morning," Meredith said. She had two cups of coffee in her hands and without thinking about it, she reached out and passed it to him without incident. Mark hummed a bit, both in appreciation for the coffee and to let her know he was listening. "Susan showed up with groceries again."

"You think that's more awkward than the chief responding to 'Nice sweater' with a long winded speech about how his ex-wife had bought it with him?"

Meredith winced a bit. "Ouch."

"Honestly, that's not even the worst of it."

There was a moment of silence before Meredith said, "Is the groceries thing really not that weird?"

Mark took a sip of his coffee, considering the question. He thought about Derek's mother - how she had always bought groceries and house supplies when they lived together during college, how she had brought Derek and Addison groceries when the two of them had first moved in together and been close to her, how he had heard the girls talk about her doing the same for them.

"I think it's maybe just a thing moms do," Mark said at last. "They're used to taking care of their kids. Yeah it's something grown ups can do for themselves, but it's also something moms are used to doing. Her youngest is out of state right? And her oldest has started a family of her own. And she sees you as part of her family now and you're the only one nearby."

"Maybe...."

* * *

"Susan!" Meredith said, spotting her stepmother walking through the hospital lobby.

"Meredith, hi!" Susan said, turning at the sound of her name. "I'm so glad I found you."

"Twice in one day."

"Is this a bad time? I mean i know you're always busy, but--"

"Yeah, no, I'm busy. I'm at work."

"Okay, I was, um...you know, I'd really just love to talk with you. I would love to find a time for you and me to sit down."

There was a part of Meredith, fragmented by her absent father and shattered by her mother's death, that wanted to snap at Susan and rage at her. But there was also a part of Meredith that heard Mark's words from that morning - which heard 'she sees you as family' and heard 'you're the only one nearby.'

"That would be nice, I think," Meredith said. Her stomach rolled with anxiety and uncertainty, still unsure of his situation and how she felt about it. "I can't do it right now, obviously, because I'm working."

"Yes, obviously." Something about the way Susan seemed to be fluttering around, twisting her hands nervously and looking just as unsure as Meredith felt, soothed something inside of Meredith. She had been feeling broken and twisty, like she was torn up jigsaw piece and she'd never be part of the perfect puzzle her father had created after Ellis had left him. But Susan looked like she didn't know how Meredith was going to fit either, but like she was going to try anything and everything possible to find the spot where Meredith fit. "I'm sorry for bothering you at work. I just...I didn't want to message you and have it feel insincere."

"It's okay," Meredith assured. She adjusted the folders in her arms, saying, "I'm not sure if I'll be able to get away for very long today, there's a lot going on, but I could message you later? And we could figure out lunch or dinner or...something?"

Susan nodded. "That sounds great."

Meredith thought about it for a moment before agreeing, "Yeah. I uh...I think so too."

She still wasn't sure how she was supposed to handle Susan or Thatcher or anything about this situation, but it would be a lie to say that she didn't at least want to try. She wanted to know her father and there was a part of her that had always wanted to know what it was like to have her father in her life, to have a family other than her perpetually closed off mother.

* * *

"So I'm going to go have dinner with Susan tonight," Meredith said. Mark had been finishing up a chart for one of his patients, but now he looked up to meet her eyes. She had changed out of her scrubs already, playing nervously with the strap of the purse over her shoulder.

"Oh really?" Mark said, shifting to give her more of his attention. The chart could wait a couple of more minutes. This was a big deal for Meredith and he knew she would need his support in this. "You want me to come along?"

There was a moment before Meredith shook her head. "No. It's just going to be the two of us."

"Alright then." He hummed a bit before saying, "Maybe I'll try and get the chief laid. If what I saw this morning was any indication of his skill, he needs the help."

"I'll see you at home tonight?"

"Absolutely," Mark said. His chest was warm with the ideas planted in his head by her words - with the trust of Meredith knowing he would only come back to her, with Meredith calling her house home for both of them. He leaned forward, pressing his lips against hers. "I love you."

Meredith was smiling as she answered, "I love you too."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1) Hello everyone! I'm sorry it's been so long since I updated. I didn't mean for that to happen, but school got weird and I got attached to a couple of video games and I wasn't really writing much. 
> 
> 2) I am not entirely sure where Derek and Mark's conversation in "My Favorite Mistake" takes place? I think it's a conference room which I can understand Derek being in since he's working on his proposal - but i have no idea why Mark would go in there if that was the case?


End file.
